The Hugamonsters had an amazing time talking amongst themselves during the first ever Hugamonsters Helpline House!
Note to self: check the calendar and make sure you're not in a competing timeslot with wake's Town Hall! 🤦♀🤦♀🤷♀🤷♀
At any rate, Saturdays are tricky for events so I'm open to suggestions for timeslots that work for folks - maybe a weeknight evening EST?
The Hugamonsters have been getting a LOT of questions about how to use the app without hitting Degen 0! It's not intuitive, especially with so many people sharing different strategies to maximize earnings, all of which yield varying results. It's easy to understand why folks are confused - there are a LOT of moving pieces here.
To add to the confusion, right now there's a blip in the beep boops so the numbers in the app re: estimated income are displaying incorrectly (your funds are safu!) and team is doing some work under the hood to fix it. Vijay chatted at length about this issue in wake's Town Hall on Farcaster and the takeaway was:
Pay close attention to your degen so you don't go to zero.
To trigger a release of degen into your wallet, stake a tiny amount of ALFA in a high-volume channel.
Updates will be provided on the AlfaFrens account. They're hoping to complete the upgrade by Mondayish.
This article is for peeps who are interested in using the app as an average user, not as a power user who hosts their own channel. If you're interested in learning about how to grow your channel, General Ism and Foodmasku are good sources of information/inspiration.
Basically, there are two main ways to use AlfaFrens:
Maximize earnings
Maximize knowledge
Both of these are great ways to use the app, and they're not mutually exclusive - a hybrid approach works too!
If you want to learn how to maximize earnings, the collective wisdom of Tormential, Aaron V, and Foodmasku should be your first stop. Each of them has a slightly different, well-informed approach to investing in subscriptions and staking.
If you want to learn how to maximize knowledge, I'm your hugamonster, read on!
I look at AlfaFrens subscriptions the same way I look at my New York Times subscription:
I pay them money. Their newspaper makes me smarter and helps me understand the world better. That's the beginning and the end of the deal.
The New York Times doesn't airdrop me bottles of Scotch when I renew my subscription (although they should, especially during election years!). They even have the nerve ask me to pay them more money!
In AlfaFrens, I subscribe to people who are way smarter than I am and friends I want to support. I would do this regardless of whether these subscriptions generated ALFA or offered cashback.
The knowledge and insight I receive in return for my subscription cost has been far more valuable than the small amount of degen I've earned from staking ALFA.
I've learned about community from wake.
I've learned about trading from General Ism.
I've learned how artists can use AlfaFrens well from Ashira.
I've met new friendos and get peeks behind the creative scenes in Foodmasku's channel.
I get the inside scoop on HAM in deployer's channel.
Edit's been sharing all kinds of fun stuff in his channel, including info about trading bots.
I've learned how to go from 0 to OMG EXPONENTIAL GROWTH from Aaron.
If you've ever felt like you're late for everything and miss opportunities, spending time with the builders in AlfaFrens will help you learn how to spot them early and also understand which ones to avoid and why.
Your subscription also buys you access to conversation with these folks! One of the things I've always appreciated about crypto is how accessible everyone is and how generous they are with sharing their knowledge. They're also busy people whose DMs are a wreck!
If you want to get someone's attention or ask a question, a lot of these folks are now prioritizing their AlfaFrens channel over DMs or responding in the Farcaster feed. If you don't have a built-in network that can help you get in touch with someone, there's no better way to do it than to hop into their AlfaFrens channel. I can't emphasize enough how helpful this has been for me.
All of this is nice, Jen, but how do we do it without going broke?
Easy peasy lemon squeezy - just have to know which numbers to pay attention to!
When you start on AlfaFrens, you need to send an initial amount of degen to your AlfaFrens wallet - enough to subscribe to some channels and cover gas for claiming ALFA. I started with 2000 degen (about $36 USD at the time of this writing, cheaper than the NYT!).
An important thing to note is that your subscription cost is streaming. You don't pay 500 degen up front to subscribe to a channel. You pay 500 degen incrementally over the course of a month - this is how superfluid technology works (it's amazing!).
Because your subscription cost is paid over the course of the month, you can subscribe to LOTS of channels immediately.
This initial flurry of subscriptions is where people find themselves in trouble and whoooosh to Degen 0 quickly.
That said, revenue maxis recommend a subscribe to all the channels approach because your subscriptions generate ALFA, which helps you earn degen. If you go this route, know you'll need to start with a LOT more than 2000 degen.
Whichever way you choose to approach it, the most important number to pay attention to is the one in the top right corner. If that number is going up, no matter how slowly, you're good. If it's going down, and it will in the beginning, keep close tabs on it and send extra degen to your AlfaFrens wallet if necessary.
If the number at the top right of your screen hits 0, all of your subscriptions will be cancelled and you will no longer be able to claim/stake ALFA.
So, now that you've got some subscriptions, you will see at the bottom of the home tab an ALFA ticker. ALFA is generated by your channel subscriptions. Some subscriptions generate more ALFA than others.
ALFA is used to stake in channels. You can stake anywhere - you aren't limited to staking in channels you subscribe to. In the beginning, you'll probably want to claim and stake ALFA a few times a day. Be mindful of gas on claiming and staking transactions - sometimes it's a little high. Your gas fees are paid from the degen in your AlfaFrens wallet.
When you stake ALFA in a channel, you receive a portion of that channel's subscription revenue in the form of degenx.
The number in the blue box at the top of the home tab is your estimated monthly income. This amount represents the "cashback" you receive from staked ALFA.
Important to note: This is a gross calculation. To determine your net income, you'll need to add up your subscription costs and subtract the total from this number. If this number is negative, you're heading toward Degen 0.
The hugamonsters find all of this a little confusing! Let's try to simplify the workflow.
Fund your AlfaFrens wallet.
Subscribe to channels.
Channel subscriptions generate ALFA.
Claim ALFA.
Stake ALFA.
Earn "cashback" in the form of degenx.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
The more you invest in AlfaFrens, the more you can earn.
OR
The more you invest in AlfaFrens, the more you can learn.
Just depends how you want to use it.
Let's go back to the number at the top right (your AlfaFrens wallet) again for a second.
I started with 2000 degen, went on an unstaking spree and spent a lot on gas, and ended up sending another 1400 degen to my AlfaFrens wallet to finish the job.
I started an experiment last week to use the app as an average user - no new subscriptions and claiming/staking twice a day. Right now I have around 2600 degen in my wallet and my money printer is brrrrrrring in the right direction.
I will consider it a win when I can withdraw 3400 degen and manage subscriptions with house money going forward, and this is what I have been working toward since I joined the app on day 1.
However, as more people join AlfaFrens and stake, my degenx earnings will decrease.
I'm ok with that! I'm also ok with simply paying for my subscriptions and without receiving cashback, if that's how it plays out. Circling back to where we started, I get way more value from what I'm learning than what I would from the amount of time and effort required to maximize ALFA/degenx revenue.
I hope this was helpful, friendos!
You don't have to be an expert to share what you know - you only need to be a step or two ahead of the people you're teaching. And when you share what you know, it helps you understand things on a deeper level. Win win!
So if you've thought about starting an AlfaFrens channel I encourage you to go for it and see what happens! You don't have to have "alpha" to be helpful to someone.
As always, NFA, DYOR, and this article was written by a hugamonster, not AI.
Submit your questions to Hugamonsters Helpline: hellohugamonsters@gmail.com
