There is a phrase that's really important in the crypto world. This phrase is so important that if you question it people will think you are crazy. The phrase is "Do Your Research." People in the crypto world say this all the time. They say "DYOR" for short.

* It is like a rule that everyone has to follow.

* People use it to get out of trouble when they give advice.

You will see it on Twitter, on Telegram and on YouTube videos. Some guy will be sitting in a gaming chair telling you which coin is going to do well. He will say it is going to be worth a lot soon. Then he will say ". Do Your Own Research this is not financial advice."

I am going to say something that nobody, in the crypto world wants to hear.

The thing is, Do Your Own Research is mostly not true.. The people who say it the most know that it is not true. They are just saying it because they have to.

Let's Be Honest About What "Research" Means Here

When someone in a crypto Telegram group says "Do Your Research " what do they really mean?

They mean you should read the whitepaper that the team who is selling you the crypto token wrote.

You should check the tokenomics that this team is presenting to you.

You should look at the roadmap that this crypto team created.

You should watch some YouTube videos that people made who were paid by this crypto team or who just want you to watch their videos.

This is not really doing research.

This is like reading a car salesmans brochure and thinking you are a car expert.

Real research the kind that will actually help you needs tools that cost a lot of money.

You need to understand the audits of contracts really well so you know when they are real or just for show.

You need to know which wallets belong to the people making the crypto before they are supposed to be available.

You need to have the kind of tools that big companies use to watch the market, which's not something that regular investors have.

Without these tools even the most careful investor does not have enough information.

People will still tell you to read the article, on Medium and say "Do Your Own Research" about crypto.

The Math Is Screaming at You

Here's a number that the crypto industry really does not want you to think about much.

Between 2020 and 2025 more than $15 billion was lost because of crypto scams, rug pulls and projects that did not work out.

Fifteen billion dollars that's a lot of money.

The crypto industry says that people who lost money did not do their research.

So when things go well it's because crypto is an fair financial system that uses maths to make sure everything is okay.. When things go wrong it's because people did not read enough online forums. That's not fair.

This is a way to shift the blame. It makes the person saying it seem smart and responsible. It puts all the blame on the person who lost their money. It's actually really clever. Not, in a good way.

"DYOR" Is Also a Legal Shield. For Them.

Let us call this what it really is.

Doing Your Own Research is often used with "Not Financial Advice" as a way of saying you are in charge of the financial choices you make. In a lot of countries there are laws to protect people who buy things or to reduce the risk of being sued because of something someone said about investments. If someone gives you investment advice that causes you to lose money you could take them to court for being careless or for lying to you.

So when your favorite crypto influencer says "this coin is going to change the world Doing Your Own Research Not Financial Advice”. What they are really doing is telling you what to invest in while protecting themselves from getting in trouble for that advice.

They get the good stuff. Money from affiliate links, paid promotions and tokens they sell to you when you buy. You get the stuff.. A reminder that you should have done your own research on the crypto.

It is a system, for them the crypto influencers.

The SQUID Coin Incident Is Not an Anomaly. It's the Template.

In 2021 the SQUID token went up by a huge amount, around 75,000 percent in just one week. People invested in the SQUID token without checking the information about it like the whitepaper, which had a lot of mistakes in it. They also did not care that the people behind the SQUID token were not known and that investors could sell the SQUID token at any time. When the people behind the SQUID token took away the money the price of the SQUID token went from $2,856 to zero in just a few minutes.

The usual thing that people in the crypto world say when they talk about this is that those investors should have done their research, on the SQUID token.

The real thing that we can learn from this is that the SQUID token went up by much because the whole crypto market is based on how people feel about it how popular it is and the hope that you will not be the last person to own the SQUID token. No matter how much you research the SQUID token it does not change the fact that thiss how the crypto market works.

The SQUID token project was set up to cheat people. The people who lost money were not stupid they were just playing a game that was not fair. Were told that they should have been more careful.

So What Are You Actually Supposed to Do?

Here's a REALLY hot take, that will probably get me ratio'd on X.
The majority of retail investors ought not to do their own research. They ought to do less.
Not due to their inability. The idea of conducting research to stay ahead is a trap we need to avoid. It means the information is out there, symmetrically accessible and the hard work is just closing the gap between you and a hedge fund with three PhDs, their own data feeds and direct line to project founders.
It is not. The smart money has already discovered this. As a result, the market is increasingly becoming an institutional game rather than a democratized playground where the savvy retail investor triumphed unfairly over the institutions.
The useful interpretation of DYOR is not “research this token like a pro.” It’s
Will I suffer a financial calamity if this goes to zero? If so, then stop. That's Enough. This is the research.

The Disclaimer at the Bottom of This Article

This information is for educational purposes only. It is not financial advice.
Do your own research.
It is okay to be imperfect in these things. Give yourself a break.

Investing in cryptocurrencies is risky. The author has opinions and not positions in any assets. Minus vibes. Extended vibes.