Bull Market Mastery: 4 Crucial Ways To Do Your Own Research (DYOR)

Over the years, the phrase "do your own research" (DYOR) has become ubiquitous within the crypto community. While it is sound advice, the term has been largely reduced to a mere disclaimer that people use to sidestep responsibility when promoting their projects. This is not how it should be.

As we enter the bull market, keep in mind that “DYOR” isn’t just some disclaimer-like catchphrase – it's an essential practice that separates savvy crypto users from gamblers. Done correctly, DYOR should help inform crucial crypto decisions, mitigate risks, and maximize opportunities.

So, with markets heating up, here are the 4 most important things to zoom in on.

1. Onchain Data

When figuring out your next big move, it’s essential to make informed decisions based on transparent data rather than relying solely on third-party opinions. This direct access ensures authenticity and transparency, enabling you to uncover insights that may otherwise be obscured. And while data analysis may seem relatively technical at a glance, a new generation of onchain data analytics tools make it easier than ever to dive into the data yourself, regardless of whether you’re a crypto veteran or new user.

No single metric paints a complete picture of a project’s traction and potential, but being open to looking at the data yourself will go a long way toward helping you decipher what is actually taking place onchain. And while it’s often helpful to reference pre-configured and community-contributed dashboards, it’s ideal to dive deeper into the data with your own custom queries.

2. Developer Activity

It’s often helpful to start with the public documentation listed on a project’s GitHub or GitLab. While these platforms may feel overwhelming at a glance if you’re not a developer, you can still gauge how active these projects are and gain additional context. Note that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are increasingly capable of synthesizing code repositories and explaining what they do, which can help you to determine what a project is prioritizing and building.

Additionally, many projects make a clear effort to attract and support developers to build with them on their network. As a result, it can be helpful to look through a project’s developer resources, including their Gitbook or documentation pages, and see whether they have any ecosystem grants or other builder incentive systems.

3. Community Activity

Community is the lifeblood of any web3 project, but this is where most of the red herrings appear. At the end of the day, crypto influencers, analysts, and even regular community members or token holders have their own motivations. If someone finds a compelling market signal, it’s in their best interest to act on it early instead of broadcasting it to the world – so all advice or hopium you come across should be taken with a grain of salt, even if it seems well-intentioned.

This doesn’t mean you should ignore all the signals scattered across the crypto social scene; you just need to do your best to filter out the noise, whether you are looking at X (formerly Twitter), Discord, Reddit or any other popular platforms. When assessing a project's community activity, consider engagement metrics such as the ratio of likes and comments to the project’s total follower count and the quality of third-party mentions.

Watch out for red flags like high follower count accounts with low engagement, sudden spikes in followers not accompanied by similar increases in engagement, and generic, repetitive social posts. These patterns may indicate a project’s reliance on bots or other manipulative tactics to fluff its community growth figures.

4. Investors and Project Teams

The composition of a project's key team members and investors can affect its credibility and likelihood of succeeding. Projects with a deep bench of credentialed founders and investors with successful, verifiable track records bring a lot of validation to their brand, and most projects mention key team members and investors on their website. From there, you can look into their respective Linkedin pages, social accounts, and other personal channels.

It’s important to note that lesser-known or even anonymous project teams are not necessarily a negative indicator. But very few low-quality web3 projects manage to attract prominent team members with extensive experience in their respective fields. When researching these key players, be sure to take note of whether they publicly advocate for the project on their own social channels. The way these individuals communicate about the project in public can reflect their actual level of involvement and enthusiasm (or lack thereof), and highly engaged team members and investors can signal a project's strength.

DYOR Is Your Call to Action, Not a Disclaimer

The crypto community has been increasingly optimistic in recent months, following positive price trends and rumors about potential SEC-approved crypto funds around the corner. But money attracts attention, which is why every bull market is accompanied by a deluge of misinformation, scammers, and hackers. These conditions make it more difficult to discern which projects are high quality and worthy of your time and resources, and which are effectively well-marketed vaporware. But this is exactly why it’s so crucial to actually DYOR.

As we enter the next bull market, let's embrace DYOR – not as a catchphrase to sidestep personal responsibility, but as a practical process that guides our interactions in the exciting and ever-evolving world of web3.

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Jim Myers is an engineer, early-stage investor, and the CTO & Co-Founder of Flipside Crypto, a leading blockchain data analytics and business intelligence platform. Prior to co-founding Flipside, Jim developed the core technology that took products from 0 to 1 at companies such as Mylestone, Pluralsight, and Smarterer. Jim’s journey into the crypto industry began in 2015, eventually co-founding Flipside Crypto in 2017 to help empower crypto communities to create and share data-driven insights on the projects they care most about.

Jim's passion for building extends to the broader startup community via his developer event series, Stack Dive, and as an angel investor to several local Boston-area startups, including AdHawk and LinkSquares. In a previous life, Jim developed advanced models to quantify risk and abnormal returns in the market for Financial Transmission Rights, a type of energy derivative.

Flipside Crypto is a leading on-chain data analytics and business intelligence platform, that empowers the web3 community to build with and leverage accurate, reliable data across 20+ blockchains. Our data is labeled with proprietary algorithms for developers and analysts to query, create, and build. The Flipside product suite provides everyone from individuals to enterprises with flexibility on how and where they access on-chain data. Founded in 2017, Flipside has grown to be one of the world’s foremost blockchain analytics providers with over 50,000 analysts and key partnerships with L1 & L2 ecosystems including Solana, NEAR, Flow, and Avalanche. Flipside is backed by leading investors including Republic Capital, True Ventures, Galaxy Digital, M13, and more.