Cardano (ADA) presents a get example of learning to dial in expectations. There really is ground between dead and to the moon.

A fair few posts either talk up a project like it's going to be cool to tattoo it on your ass in a few days or talk it down that it's worse then cancer. It's pretty much why the saying "Buy the rumour, sell the news" exists. As people don't know how to dial in expectations to make a fair price judgement.

You need to be realistic with the news, basically see through the hype with your own research. Ask the fundamental questions, and not just leave it to following the crowd.

Cardano Smart Contracts Example

The news was painting it as "this is it, see the explosion of a new dApp ecosystem". Whereas if you stepped back and realised for that to happen you'd need heaps of independent projects all tested and ready to go off testnet to mainnet.....which definitely was not the case.

There was no Plutus Application Backend ready, which without kinda prevents dApps developing. If you did some research you'd of discovered that as Cardano didn't make it a secret. Even googling a few of the annouced dApps would of shown it.

The price climbed, people bought into the hype. Smart Contracts arrived and reality hit, price dropped way back. People who blindly followed the hype were pissed, just take a look at the posts on here from then.

Well that's just hindsight?

Maybe, but take what's happening now. Sundaeswap is releasing their Dex (in beta but some news sites leave that part off) in a few days on the 20th Jan. ADA has been climbing in price with hype building of "this is it, see the explosion of a new dApp ecosystem".

However if you have been just doing a little research, you'll understand that Sundaeswap has said:

Even with all these factors in play, due to staggering levels of demand and excitement from our community, we expect a large backlog on mainnet as well — even under our most optimistic predictions. To be as transparent as we can, we want to inform you all that while orders (including swapping, providing liquidity andwithdrawing liquidity) may take days to process

https://sundaeswap.finance/posts/expectations-congestion-mainnet-launch

Which among other reasons is because the Cardano blockchain is only slowly being dialled up in performance. Measure twice and cut once approach. They had this to say about a recent 12.5% increase in performance:

We are taking a steady, methodical approach to changes in Cardano's parameterization. A 12.5% increase is sizable, but not too big. It leaves room for further expansion, and allows stake pool operators (SPOs) to adjust to the increased demands.

https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2021/11/22/slow-and-steady-wins-the-race-network-evolution-for-network-growth/

What's it all mean?

Really what it spells out is that people who don't keep up with things, which is a large percentage, will buy in on the ADA price rise thinking this Dex will be bangin' on day 1. Then they see the Dex come out only to be extremely slow initially.

No doubt you'll see a bunch of posts basically calling it a complete failure as the ADA price dips on the perceived bad news.

You can apply this to all project updates, ADA is just a very clean example. With both the project and the blockchain Dev making no secret of what is to come.

If you dialled in your expectations

You still need to make a fundamental call on the price of the project. Even with all the hype you may still see it as a buy opportunity.

If you judge the majority of people have hyped a coming release, feature or update then you can take advantage of the now expected dip when people wake up to reality and sell.

Research pays off, and hopefully you get to count your fat stacks you beautiful SOB.