To be honest, people who have experienced a full bull-bear cycle now have a conditioned reflex to be wary whenever they hear terms like "yield generation" or "financial management." After all, they've suffered too many losses—those projects that promise an annualized return of 20%, 50%, or even more outrageous fixed returns, without exception, end up targeting your principal as their next harvest.

The iron rule of this market is actually very simple: for any protocol that can't clearly explain where the money comes from, chances are it's eyeing the savings in your wallet. Having seen enough Ponzi schemes, my first reaction to high-yield promises is no longer to rush in, but to ask three questions—What are the underlying assets? Does the yield logic hold up? Where does the liquidity come from?

So when I recently noticed a new staking protocol, the first thing I did wasn't to check how high the APY was, but to look at what exactly was written in the whitepaper.