25 Bucks, $SAMO Meme Coin, and a Dream: My Crypto Awakening

10 min readDec 24, 2024

I’ll admit it — I used to think cryptocurrency was just digital Monopoly money for nerds in hoodies. You know, the kind of thing people argued about on Reddit while pretending to be financial geniuses. And if I’m being completely honest, the idea of “DeFi” sounded less like decentralized finance and more like something you’d yell during a bar fight.

So, when one of my best friends: Matthew hit me up in late 2020 and said, “Hey, wanna make $25 a week chatting in a Telegram group about a meme coin?” — I didn’t think, This is the future of finance! No, my first thought was, $25? For chatting? Sign me up before they figure out I’m not qualified.

At the time, $25 a week was practically my version of a winning lottery ticket. We’re talking Jumbo Shawarma with actual toppings. Fancy living, right?

Little did I know, that seemingly random Telegram gig would launch me headfirst into a rabbit hole of airdrops, wallets, and a language that sounded like it belonged in a sci-fi movie — liquidity pools, yield farming, and gas fees. It didn’t take long for me to realize that crypto wasn’t just Monopoly money — it was an entire digital universe, and I was about to become one of its wide-eyed explorers.

The Skeptic Becomes Curious — Early Struggles and Hesitations

After my first taste of crypto chatter in that Telegram group, I figured I had this whole “blockchain thing” under control. Spoiler alert: I didn’t.

By the end of 2020, my brief stint as a $25-a-week meme coin cheerleader came to an end, and so did my interest in crypto — at least temporarily. The gigs dried up, the hype seemed to fade, and I went right back to my comfort zone of skepticism and scrolling social media.

Then, out of nowhere, that same friend who roped me into the Telegram hustle resurfaced in September 2021.

This time, he wasn’t talking about Telegram chats or meme coins. No, now it was airdrops. Free money, he said. “All you have to do is set up a Sollet.io wallet, deposit a bit of SOL to activate it, and boom — airdrops start rolling in.”

I squinted at my phone. Deposit money to get free money? Sounds like one of those ‘send me $100 and I’ll send you $1,000 back’ scams.

But curiosity has a funny way of overriding skepticism, and I decided to at least try to keep up with the conversation. Except there was one tiny problem: I wasn’t ready to commit even a penny of my hard-earned cash into this “airdrops” idea.

So, instead of using the recommended Sollet.io wallet, I took the lazy route and stuck with my Trust Wallet address. Big mistake.

Lesson One: Shortcuts Don’t Work in Crypto.

As it turned out, Trust Wallet wasn’t exactly the MVP of the Solana ecosystem at the time. It couldn’t even receive most airdrops. Imagine standing outside a party, hearing the music, smelling the food, but not being able to get in because you brought the wrong ID. That was me — watching tweets about free tokens roll by while my wallet stayed depressingly empty.

Still, I told myself it wasn’t a big deal because the airdrops I could receive weren’t exactly earth-shattering. Most were worth about as much as loose change under the couch cushions, so I figured I wasn’t missing much.

But the truth? I was missing a lot more than I realized.

Almost Giving Up — And Then Came the Tweet.

By October, I was just about ready to toss the whole idea of crypto out the window. I was tired of forms, retweets, and waiting for tokens that never showed up.

Then, one evening while scrolling Twitter, I saw The Tweet.

Some guy had just made $1,500 from a $SAMO airdrop.

I froze. $1,500 wasn’t just pocket change. That was rent money. Bills money. Life-changing money. And he’d gotten it from a sol meme coin airdrop?

Suddenly, my skepticism wasn’t looking so smart anymore. Instead, I felt like the guy who turned down buying Bitcoin at $1 and spent the rest of his life regretting it.

That tweet lit a fire under me. I started questioning everything — how did a meme coin become this valuable? What even was DeFi? What were all these buzzwords like AMM, staking, and liquidity farming?

I didn’t know the answers yet, but one thing was clear — I wasn’t about to get left behind again.

The Turning Point — The Tweet That Changed Everything

You know that feeling when you see someone casually post a screenshot of their bank account balance, and it’s more than what you’ve made in the last six months? Yeah, that’s exactly what hit me when I saw the tweet about someone making $1,500 from a $SAMO airdrop.

I must’ve stared at that tweet for a solid minute, waiting for my brain to process what I was looking at. Fifteen hundred dollars. From a meme coin. For free?

I refreshed the page, half-expecting it to be deleted — like the crypto gods had made a typo and were trying to cover it up. But no, it was real. And that’s when it happened.

The switch flipped.

Suddenly, I wasn’t just curious about crypto — I was obsessed. The kind of obsession where you forget to eat because you’re too busy watching tutorials on decentralized exchanges. The kind where you fall asleep with your phone in your hand, mid-video, and wake up ready to keep learning.

Late Nights and Rabbit Holes

I went full detective mode. I wanted to know everything. What was DeFi? How did liquidity pools work? Why was everyone so excited about staking — was it just fancy savings, or something more?

YouTube became my new best friend. Terms like AMM, slippage, impermanent loss, and yield farming started swirling in my head, and before long, they actually started making sense.

I even set alarms for crypto Twitter spaces, where self-proclaimed “degens” talked about meme coins like they were stocks on Wall Street — except instead of suits and ties, these guys had anime profile pictures and usernames like @DogecoinDaddy.

It didn’t matter how ridiculous it seemed — I was hooked.

Wallet Activation: No More Shortcuts

The first order of business? Fixing my rookie mistake.

I finally activated my Sollet.io wallet (after swallowing my pride and depositing a little SOL). And let me tell you — when that wallet was up and running, it felt like opening a treasure chest. Suddenly, I wasn’t locked out of the party anymore. I was in the game.

The airdrop hustle began in full force. I was filling out forms, liking tweets, and retweeting announcements faster than I could keep track. Every notification had me checking my wallet like a kid shaking presents on Christmas morning.

The First Big Win — $MEME and a Hard Lesson

After grinding through dozens of airdrop attempts, I finally hit a decent score — $150 worth of $MEME(6DNkUoMa6vNo3CsxAw5XMJhjmdPbPBENHJ6w35eMXESo) tokens.

It wasn’t $1,500, but to me, it felt like hitting the jackpot , i cant show a prove to that because i learnt another lesson of saving seed phrase.

I was already daydreaming about cashing out and treating myself to something fancy — maybe even a real fine dinner instead of shawarma. But instead of selling, I did what every overconfident beginner does — I held on.

Because, you know, what if it goes higher?

Spoiler alert: it didn’t. It tanked. Hard.

Watching that $150 shrink faster than my confidence taught me my first real lesson in crypto — take profits when you can. But instead of getting discouraged, I took it as part of the learning curve.

No Turning Back Now

By this point, I wasn’t just dabbling in crypto — I was living it.

Every win (and loss) fueled my hunger to learn more. I started noticing patterns, reading charts, and even recognizing narratives that drove trends in the market. Crypto wasn’t just some get-rich-quick scheme anymore; it was a world of opportunities — if you were willing to chase them.

And for me, it all started with $SAMO.

The Hustle — From FOMO to Full-Time Grind

By this point, I was all in.

The $SAMO tweet had lit a fire under me, and my $MEME win (and loss) taught me two important things:

Crypto wasn’t just hype — it was a skill game.
Skills meant survival.

So, I did what any rational person would do — I went into full hustle mode.

Becoming an Airdrop Hunter

If there was an airdrop announcement, I was on it.

Forms? Filled. Tweets? Retweeted. Telegram groups? Joined. I wasn’t just hunting airdrops — I was stalking them. My notifications were buzzing 24/7, and I swear I developed a sixth sense for spotting promising drops.

Every new token felt like a lottery ticket, but I wasn’t blindly scratching cards anymore — I was doing my homework. I started recognizing trends, digging into tokenomics, and understanding the projects behind the coins.

I even built spreadsheets to track my progress. (Yes, spreadsheets — because nothing screams “crypto degen” like staying up at 3 AM to color-code cells based on potential gains.)

But here’s the thing — I wasn’t just chasing free tokens. I was learning the ecosystem — and that knowledge was about to pay off.

Leveling Up — Community Management and Networking

One night, while scrolling through a Telegram group, I noticed something. People weren’t just asking questions about tokens — they were building connections.

That’s when it hit me: Web3 wasn’t just about trading; it was about community.

So, I took a leap. Instead of just being a participant, I started helping out in groups. I answered questions, welcomed newbies, and slowly became a recognizable name in the chats.

Before I knew it, opportunities started rolling in.

Projects were looking for people to moderate communities, run giveaways, and organize campaigns. And thanks to my grind and a growing network, I was landing gigs left and right — gigs that paid better than my old $25-a-week Telegram job.

I was no longer just a guy chasing airdrops — I was becoming a Web3 professional.

Diving into Marketing and Writing

With every new gig, I was leveling up.

I started learning about crypto marketing — how narratives drive hype, how to craft the perfect tweet, and how to keep communities engaged. I took courses, read eBooks, and soaked up everything I could find about content creation and branding in Web3.

And that’s when I discovered something unexpected — I actually loved writing.

What started as answering questions in Telegram evolved into creating content. Before long, I was writing threads, blog posts, and campaign ideas for projects. And let me tell you — seeing your work help a token trend or a project grow? That’s a different kind of rush.

From Meme Coins to Meaningful Work

The funny part? It all traced back to $SAMO.

That random meme coin wasn’t just my introduction to crypto — it was the spark that pushed me to learn, adapt, and take risks. It gave me the confidence to chase opportunities and build a career I didn’t even know existed.

And the best part? The deeper I went into Web3, the bigger the opportunities became.

I wasn’t just stacking airdrops anymore — I was building relationships, skills, and a future.

The Payoff — From Meme Coin Dabbler to Web3 Builder

Looking back, it’s funny how everything started with a $25-a-week Telegram gig and a meme coin. I mean, who would’ve thought that liking tweets and filling out Google forms could lead to something so much bigger?

But here I am — no longer just chasing tokens, but building a career in Web3.

Crypto Didn’t Just Pay — It Taught Me.

Crypto didn’t hand me success on a silver platter — it made me earn it.

From my first big airdrop win to the painful lesson of not taking profits, every step taught me something valuable:

Patience pays off — but hesitation costs more.
Luck opens doors, but knowledge keeps them open.
Opportunities in Web3 aren’t given — they’re created.

And honestly? I wouldn’t change a thing.

Because those lessons didn’t just help me survive in crypto — they set the foundation for everything that came next.

From Tokens to Tools — Turning Knowledge into Work.

Once I realized that Web3 wasn’t just about money — it was about community, my approach shifted.

I wasn’t just trading tokens anymore — I was:

Managing Telegram communities.
Running marketing campaigns.
Writing blog posts, threads, and newsletters for projects.
Helping new users navigate DeFi and wallets.

And with every new project, my network grew. What started as a few gigs quickly snowballed into something bigger — a Web3 writing career that let me do what I love, on my own terms.

No bosses. No cubicles. Just me, my laptop, and the Solana ecosystem that sparked it all.

The Bigger Picture — Building Beyond $SAMO.

But here’s the thing — $SAMO wasn’t just my first memecoin. It was my gateway to Web3.

It introduced me to ideas I’d never considered — decentralization, finance without borders, and community-driven growth. It made me believe in the power of memes and narratives to create value and impact.

Most importantly, it showed me that anyone — literally anyone — can make it in this space if they’re willing to:

Learn like crazy.
Adapt when things change.
Take risks and keep showing up.

And I’m living proof of that.