The Season 1 airdrop activity of the Backpack trading platform has been going on for the 4th week. As of the 3rd week of the activity, the total trading volume of Backpack spot and contracts reached 4.1 billion US dollars. The 24-hour contract trading volume reached a maximum of 950 million US dollars, and the open interest reached 113 million US dollars, both of which set a record high.
In addition to Backpacks own platform currency, which is the biggest expectation, in previous trading activities, big coins such as $W and $TNSR can be sucked by trading on Backpack. It may not be very accurate to say sucked, because not only does the project itself encourage real trading behavior, but many users also rely on their own trading ability to make money on Backpack and gain potential airdrops.
When the market is not favorable for retail trading, many people turn to low-risk returns. BlockBeats found a high-level player CJ ( @gch_enbsbxbs ), whose main focus is arbitrage. Some time ago, CJ made his own arbitrage script for the Backpack trading platform, trying to make a profit in a low-risk way on this trading platform with the expectation of issuing coins. Whats more interesting is that CJ has never been exposed to programming, and this script is completely completed by AI.
BlockBeats talked to him about his views on Backpack platform trading and freeloading. CJ is not a typical freeloader, and his money-making freeloading method can bring many new perspectives to everyone.
Atypical hair-pulling person
BlockBeats: There are many tutorials on Twitter, but projects such as public chains, infrastructure or DePIN often attract more attention. Why did you choose Backpack, a trading platform type of target?
CJ: In a bad market environment, pure staking and interactive projects are prone to being reverse-looted. In my opinion, projects that burn gas to interact on the chain are not good looting targets. They not only consume time and energy, but also money.
After I was anti-scammed, I reflected on what kind of project would make me not passive? The most important factor may be whether the scam project itself can make users make money.
The most prominent project of this type is the trading platform, because the platform itself is also a transaction. Since it is a transaction, of course some people will make money and some will lose money, which depends on personal play style and ability.
For projects like Backpack, a trading platform, users can arbitrage through trading. If they play well, they don’t have to spend money, but they can make money while interacting. Such projects are actually not easy to find in the current market environment. Of course, there are other reasons why I would choose this trading platform as the main interactive target. For example, the project that can create a large trading platform is strong enough. Backpack has not only been running for a long time, but also spent more than 30 million US dollars to acquire FTX EU, so it is chosen as the interactive target. The reliability and potential are high.
Money-making hair-pulling
Rhythm BlockBeats: How does LuMao make money without spending any money?
CJ: In addition to doing ordinary buy/sell or long/short transactions, there are many other ways to arbitrage in the airdrop interaction of trading platforms, which do not require testing your own trading skills. For example, copy trading, grid, Martingale strategy, term arbitrage, cross-exchange arbitrage of funding rates, spot DEX/CEX spread arbitrage, etc.
Essentially, it is to do arbitrage while taking the airdrop rewards. It is not easy to find good projects of this type, because large trading platforms have either already issued coins, or they are mainly trading, and may not have good opportunities for arbitrage and airdrops.
Do arbitrage to get the airdrop, and if you play well, you can kill two birds with one stone. For example, I can hedge SOL first (buy SOL and short it at the same time), so that I can first make trading volume on projects like Backpack. After getting the spot SOL, I will move it to the chain, and choose a large currency or meme currency to form an LP based on my risk preference, and I can earn the LPs handling fee. If you form Jupiters JLP, it is equivalent to doing Jupiters interaction, and this is killing two birds with one stone.
The meme coins earned by forming an LP must be sold in the end. At this time, you can sell them in a place that has airdrops, such as the Particle that was airdropped some time ago. When you sell it, it will have a trading volume. In this way, you can eat three times. If you also split the place where you buy SOL spot and short SOL into two trading platforms with airdrops, then you can eat four times.
In fact, we can also mention cross-exchange arbitrage here. If there are two trading platforms that will issue airdrops, you can use the fee difference between the two trading platforms to open long and short operations for arbitrage, which is also a killing two birds with one stone.
The whole process of rolling the wool becomes the same as earning interest, but if there is no leverage, the interest will be relatively much lower.
BlockBeats: Are there risks if you add leverage?
CJ: This depends on each persons risk tolerance and practical experience. As far as my personal play is concerned, a leverage of about 3 times is relatively safe. I am only afraid that there will be a huge error in the data of the trading platform itself, but the trading platform should also compensate for this level of error. If the leverage reaches 5 times, the risk factor is relatively large.
Let AI help you “pick up your hair”
Rhythm BlockBeats: I don’t know how to program, but I used AI to create a “hair-pulling” script. Can you share your experience?
CJ: I still cant write code myself, and I cant even read it, but AI can. I tell AI my ideas and let it implement them. It will tell me the problems I encountered when writing the program, and I will tell it my revised ideas. The program will be written while I chat with AI.
It sounds easy, but it actually feels like walking through a maze. There are many correct paths in the maze, and people who can write code can find one and walk out directly. I can only use AI to help me try one by one.
However, as experience accumulates, writing similar scripts can be done very quickly. After accumulating a large amount of successful code to feed to AI, a new project with similar purpose can be done very quickly.
When I first used cursor, it couldn’t help me directly obtain the APIs of various trading platforms, let alone use them directly. Even when I gave the official API documents to AI, AI would get them wrong. So I looked for documents everywhere for it, fed it with documents, and helped it correct errors until I “fed it well”.
One time I remember vividly, I had an API call method that just wouldnt work. Later I found out that the AI had deliberately changed the parameters in the document I fed it. I didnt know why it changed it, so I had to scold it and press its head to make it change. It argued with me at the time. Later the test passed, and it was indeed wrong. It doesnt matter if its wrong, just give it a chance to change and let it grow.
If you are interested in writing interactive scripts with AI, you can refer to the guide I published on Github and try to use AI to make an automatic script for Backpack to practice.
Rhythm BlockBeats: If you really don’t know how to do it, is there any way to “rub the hair” like you do?
CJ: The purpose of using automatic scripts is to be able to capture opportunities more frequently and accurately, such as abnormal fluctuations, such as opening and closing positions more frequently. If I do it manually, I might leave it alone after executing it, because it is difficult for people to keep an eye on the market. With automatic scripts, even if I open and close positions once more every day, the trading volume will increase, and I may get more airdrops.
Automatic scripts are for improving efficiency, not for making money without scripts. The key is to understand the principle of arbitrage. Knowing that arbitrage is possible and that arbitrage itself can bring airdrops, then using automatic scripts to improve the efficiency of arbitrage and airdrops is a natural and advanced pursuit.
