Web3’s Mental Health Traps

13 Traps to Watch For and How to Fight Them

Disclaimer: If you are struggling with mental health, please consult a professional.

The web3 ecosystem is bustling with unbridled energy, enthusiasm, and excitement.

Look no further than crypto Twitter to bear witness to the amount of activity in the space, buoyed by the untapped opportunities it presents, reminiscent of the early days of web1, or even, the American expansion into the then wild west.

Lifestyle guru, Tim Ferriss, says that many of his web2 friends have “dropped everything” to cultivate careers in web3.

In fact:

• Airbnb’s SVO of policy left for a crypto VC fund.
• YouTube’s former head of gaming left to join Polygon Studios.
• Amazon’s GM of AWS Edge is now at CTO at Gemini.
• Lyft’s CFO ditched his ride for OpenSea.

Silicon Valley is no longer the edgy tech frontier…web3 is.

But all of the novelty, excitement and seemingly unequaled opportunities presented by the space can leave us vulnerable.

My Observations of the Web3 Working World

Having joined the ranks of those pivoting to web3 in 2021, I was struck by how little discourse there was around or appreciation there was for how we work.

This is especially true for the hordes of 20-somethings in the space, many of whom have limited professional experience and haven’t thought much about better work habits, confusing busyness with productivity.

As someone who spent the better part of the past four years thinking about, researching, and experimenting with better work practices, culminating in my book Time Rich, a handful of Harvard Business Review articles, and a talk at SXSW 2021, red flags became very apparent to me very quicly.

All the more so when I attended SXSW this year (2022), with numerous conversations I had with web3 founders touching on excessive hours, lack of sleep, a sense of burnout, and information overwhelm.

And just this week, NFT thought leader Zeneca shared this tweet on his own struggles with…