I spent four hours participating in a new coin mining activity on a certain DEX on the Monad chain, and I ended up losing 0.919U due to a反撸 (reversal of profit). This lesson was particularly deep.

Let me get the accounts straight and see where the money went. First, the borrowing costs. The interest difference from collateralizing BNB to borrow USDT on a major exchange was 0.0938U, while the interest income from collateralizing USDT in Venus was only 0.0775U, resulting in a net loss of 0.0163U.

Even more terrifying are the various Gas costs. Withdrawals, cross-chain transfers, authorizations, staking, borrowing—all these on-chain operations burned through 0.01U of USDT, 0.000431 BNB, and 0.428 MON. When summed up, these fragmented Gas fees amounted to roughly over 0.4U at the prices at that time.

Then there are all kinds of expenses related to the new coin launch. CAKE was consumed by 8.064, and the MON tokens obtained from the new coin were 812.1307. In the end, only 14.46904 USDT was successfully sold. Basically, the slippage was set too low, causing most of the tokens to be unsellable, and I could only watch as the remaining CAKE and MON turned into trash.

Careful calculation shows that the initial expected sell price was around 17U, but only about 14U was cashed out. Considering all costs, losses, and the decline in token prices, the final account is negative. If I include the unsold tokens, the actual loss could approach 1.4U.

The biggest lesson this time is: when participating in new coin launches, never fight the slippage. It's better to set a higher slippage to ensure the transaction goes through, rather than gamble on small gains. That 0.1% slippage you save might be wiped out by bigger risks in the end, resulting in a net loss.