While most people are busy exchanging holiday greetings or sharing year-end reviews this Christmas, I am here, seemingly untactful, urging users to upgrade their LikeCoin. Forgive me—the window for the upgrade is closing fast, and I’m suffering from a severe case of FOMO. But it’s not that I’m afraid of missing out; it’s my Fear Of Your Missing Out. I’m terrified that users will miss the last train, leaving their LikeCoin to become digital dust.

The Ultimatum: Action Required by Early January

Let me repeat the most critical point: Users holding LikeCoin v2 (wallet addresses starting with like1) must upgrade to LikeCoin v3 (on the Base chain, addresses starting with 0x) before February 2, 2026.

Do not see that date and think you can deal with it later. If your LikeCoin is currently staked, it takes 21 days to unstake. In other words, you must initiate the process by early January at the latest, and that’s assuming everything goes smoothly. While the upgrade itself usually takes only minutes, if you forget your login, need a password reset, or require support, I might not be able to help you immediately due to the high volume of support tickets. Please, leave yourself more time.

LikeCoin v3 upgrade

I am usually a man of few words who hates repeating himself. However, I often remind myself: Speaking doesn’t mean being heard; being heard doesn’t mean being understood. I am learning to restate important messages from different angles.

For this v3 upgrade, I’ve thrown my usual reserve out the window—I’ve been “shameless.” Beyond weekly reminders in every article regardless of the topic and a permanent notice on the Keplr dashboard, I’ve been doing a daily countdown on X. I’ve written about the same thing in a dozen different ways. By day 20, even X’s algorithm got fed up with me and started shadow-banning my tweets.

But mass broadcasts are only half the story. Most of the heavy lifting happens in small circles or one-on-one. I’ve compiled a list of over 30,000 wallets that hold LikeCoin and have an associated email. Since November, I’ve sent five dedicated articles to every email on that list. Yet, through the funnel of delivery, opening, reading, and taking action, the numbers dwindle. After all that, the successful upgrade rate is less than 10%.

Mass mailing tools often get flagged as marketing mail or even spam by Gmail. To increase delivery rates, I sorted the list by LikeCoin holdings and sent one-on-one emails to the top 50 whales. For the rest, I sent emails in small batches directly from my own address. By the 989th “LikeCoin tycoon,” even ProtonMail warned me of spamming and rate-limited me for an hour. I can’t afford to have my email or domain blacklisted, so I’ve had to lay low like a “wanted man” for a while. I also tried Mailchimp, but had my account banned. I’ll omit the details to avoid creating “criminal evidence.”

The real breakthrough of my comfort zone came next—I started calling people. Yes, for most, a phone call is routine. But those who know me know that I view an unannounced call as the social equivalent of sneaking up behind someone and screaming in their ear. In a typical year, I make fewer phone calls than I write handwritten letters. True story: even when Dave has owed me money for years, I’ve never called to debt-collect. To call people proactively just to prevent them from losing their assets? For me, that is truly “doing whatever it takes.”

Giving Up the Upgrade = A Donation to the Community

If you think that’s all, I’m afraid you’re wrong. Those 30,000 email-linked wallets are only a fraction. Many “Web3 natives”—including one of my own wallets—have no personal data linked to them at all.

No one knows who owns these wallets except the users themselves. This is the pinnacle of privacy, but it also means I have no way to reach them. It’s like cash: a holder remains anonymous, but when a specific banknote is being phased out, the bank has no way to notify the holder. All I can do is broadcast as loudly as possible and hope users open my messages or that social media algorithms show some mercy.

This is the fundamental difference between Centralization and Decentralization. In a centralized app, the developer decides on an upgrade, and it happens without user permission or action. Decentralized systems are different. Because assets are self-custodied, the user must take action. It’s like a currency redesign; you must physically go and exchange your old notes for new ones. Imagine a “Brave New World” where your digital currency upgrades automatically without your involvement. Convenient? Yes. But it also means you never truly owned those assets in the first place.

Let’s look at the LikeCoin books: v3 has a total supply of 1.5 billion. As of this writing, over 930 million have been upgraded from v2, while over 560 million remain unclaimed. That’s an upgrade rate of about 62%.

The reasons for not upgrading are many. Some simply don’t care because the amount is small. But even with Bitcoin, it’s estimated that 28% is lost forever. It’s not just about the money; it’s about being unaware, forgetting the wallet exists, losing mnemonics, or having an expired email. Whatever the reason, if a user still cares—even if it’s just for a few LikeCoins—I will do my best to support them.

Satoshi Nakamoto once said:

“Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.”

The same applies to LikeCoin. Technically, if more people miss the upgrade, it benefits me and other holders. After the deadline, unclaimed LikeCoin will flow into the “Community Pool” to be redistributed by the community. In other words, users who miss or waive the upgrade are essentially donating to the community.

So, the fact that I am working this hard to keep every user is, strictly speaking, irrational. I’ve participated in many token swaps and airdrops as a user, and I’ve never seen a project beg people to claim their tokens. Usually, there’s an announcement on X, maybe a Medium post, and that’s it. If you don’t follow the news, you’re out. That approach is justifiable; it allows the team to focus on the new version and core users.

I am this “FO-Y-MO” because I refuse to leave any user behind. Decentralized publishing shouldn’t be a toy for tech geeks; LikeCoin aims for the general public. In the past, it was difficult to use due to technical constraints. But as the industry evolves, those who have used LikeCoin v3 and 3ook.com will agree: registration and usage are now much easier. This is just the beginning. In the coming years, LikeCoin will be simpler, more fun, and more powerful. It would be a tragedy for someone who has been with us since v1 or v2 to drop out now.

Ultimate Support: Live at Just Books

Finally, I’m adding one more form of support: Live upgrade assistance at Just Books.

Oops, I “accidentally” let the secret slip. After a year of delays, Just Books (義守書店) has finally started its soft opening. We are located right across from Sam Kee Book Store in North Point: Shop 8, B/F, King’s Centre, 193 King’s Road.

In 2026, I will transition from “unemployed” to “small business owner,” occasionally manning the shop. The official schedule isn’t set yet, but as a warm-up, I’ll be spending Christmas Day and New Year’s Day at the bookstore to help users solve LikeCoin-related issues. If you are in Hong Kong, come by:

• Dec 25: 14:00 – 18:00

• Jan 1: 12:00 – 20:00

See you at Just Books.

I have always been grateful to the participants in the LikeCoin ecosystem. With Thanksgiving as an excuse, it’s the perfect time to give back to everyone by airdropping Ether and LikeCoin to the cultural guardians who have published books, supported works, or at least registered an account on 3ook.com—yes, whether it’s writing, reading, or curating, it is all about preserving our history and culture in life.

Below are the process and some details of this airdrop. From the clues, you can more or less appreciate how far blockchain and cryptocurrencies, especially Ethereum and LikeCoin, have come on the journey of genuinely entering civil society beyond speculation, and how far they still have to go.

1. First, let’s reveal the results. You can log in to 3ook.com and click on the account page to see if you have received “unidentified” LikeCoin.
    3ook.com

2. The first step of the airdrop was to ask a colleague to work late exporting the Ethereum wallet addresses, in CSV format, of users who upgraded to the LikeCoin v3 ecosystem through four main channels:

   • Users who logged in to 3ook.com with wallets like MetaMask, Rabby, etc.: 833

   • Users who logged in to 3ook.com with email-embedded wallets: 1,632

   • Users who upgraded their books from Liker Land to 3ook.com: 203

   • Publishers and authors who published works on 3ook.com: 69
     
     From the above, the ratio of users logging in with traditional wallets to embedded wallets is approximately 1:2. The former are users who were already using a wallet because of LikeCoin v2 or other web3 applications like DeFi before encountering 3ook.com. The latter are either novices or users who, despite having a wallet, prefer a web2 experience and choose to log in with email.

3. There was a small amount of overlap among the users who upgraded through the four channels. I imported the four CSV files into Google Spreadsheet and deduplicated the data, resulting in 2,528 unique wallet addresses. In the six years of LikeCoin v2’s journey, Liker Land, the predecessor of 3ook.com, accumulated over 30,000 users (defined as having an ID, email address, and LikeCoin in the wallet $> 0$). In other words, less than 10% of users have upgraded from v2 to v3.
   
   I’d like to FOMO a bit—I Fear Of You Missing Out—the migration period has only 66 days left. Please seize the opportunity to upgrade your LikeCoin and NFT to v3, lest you be left behind and incur losses.
    Upgrade to LikeCoin v3

4. I set the airdrop amount of LikeCoin at 208 LIKE, so that every user can try out the basic functionalities. I suggest first depositing 100 LIKE into the storage vault to earn yield while acquiring 100 voting power; then, stake 100 LIKE on a book you recommend. Staking is a form of curation; your 100 LIKE can help the work get discovered, and you will receive a share of the profits when the work is sold. After trying out the two major new features, Deposit and Curation, 8 LIKE remains, which is the exact amount of the first LikeCoin “red pocket” sent out in 2018, introducing many people to cryptocurrencies for the first time.
   Tutorial on LikeCoin deposit
   Tutorial on LikeCoin staking
   
   The 3ook.com documentation provides tutorials for deposit and curation. Additionally, we will demonstrate both features again at next month’s community call (in Mandarin), specifically on Monday, December 1st, at 18:30 THT/HKT. You can join at meet.google.com/ndv-fbfx-cat or watch the YouTube livestream.
   
   Community call

5. Besides LikeCoin, I specially sent 0.00002 ETH to each user. Please don’t blame me for the low amount; this is not for getting rich (though it might be your starting point for striking it rich), but to facilitate operations and transactions by paying for gas fees. I calculated that this is generally enough for several dozen transactions.
   
   The total airdrop amount for all users is 0.05056 ETH. Interestingly, I remember when I first taught Blockchain Sociology at the Civil Academy in 2019, the “loose change” I gave each student to try out was exactly 0.05 ETH. Who would have thought that six years later, the same amount could be used for over two thousand people, and converted to fiat currency, it would be enough to cover the tuition fee for the course.

6. There are many tools for airdropping. I chose the CSV Airdrop attached to Safe Wallet, which is why the airdrop appears to come from the Safe Wallet address instead of the usual ckxpress.eth. This is a feature, not a bug; I did not want to transfer money to thousands of people from my frequently used wallet.
   
   Although guiding Muggles onto the chain is a good deed, my wallet has been flagged as high-risk more than once because I often do these silly things. When the algorithm thinks you look like a scammer, you are powerless to defend yourself. This world often punishes good people. “A clear conscience fears no accusation” is nonsense; “A gentleman doesn’t stand under a collapsing wall” is the way to go further.

7. Any tool can airdrop from a new wallet address. I chose Safe Wallet because it is reliable, free, and I am more familiar with it. Although having an AI write a small tool might be faster and simpler, when it involves real money transactions, I’d rather take a little more trouble than use a tool without a security audit or that is untested.
   
   Using Safe Wallet to airdrop ETH to 2,528 people on the Base chain, due to the complexity limit per transaction, I had to split it into eight transactions, with a total gas fee of 0.00022321 ETH. When airdropping LIKE, I was a bit more experienced and completed it in seven transactions, with a total gas fee of 0.0001185 ETH. In other words, the total gas fee for the entire airdrop was 0.00034171 ETH, which is just shy of one dollar. It is no exaggeration to say that Ethereum is not only 99% cheaper than when LikeCoin started in 2018, but also a hundred times more convenient.

8. During the airdrop process, Safe Wallet provided the following reminder, alerting me that all 400 recipients were wallets I had never transacted with before, and over 90% had only made very few transactions.
   

   

   
   However, the fact that the vast majority of recipients are fresh wallets proves, conversely, that sending LikeCoin and Ether can facilitate this group of users to take their “baby steps” and unknowingly transition from Muggles to web3 citizens.

9. I can afford the 0.05 ETH required for the airdrop, but the total of 525,824 LIKE posed a challenge for me. I’m not feigning poverty, but my LikeCoin was either already staked or still in v2 awaiting unstaking, making it unavailable immediately.
   
   Frustrated, I remembered that before the v3 upgrade, I had deposited nearly 20,000 USD worth of LIKE/USDC into the Uniswap liquidity pool. So, I withdrew one-ninth of it to cover the cost, and while I was at it, I also claimed the earned transaction fees of 133.95 USD from this period. A rough calculation shows the annualized return is about 11% plus, which is much higher than I expected.
   

   

   
   

10. I can afford this airdrop amount and don’t mind covering it, but it would be more meaningful if LikeCoin DAO funded it. Also considering the goal of having users newly arrived at LikeCoin v3 participate in governance, I specifically raised LIP-101 proposal, asking the community to ratify this airdrop and approve the corresponding allocation. Since the airdrop was “act first, report later,” I will only claim reimbursement for this expense if LIP-101 is passed. Otherwise, I will cover the airdrop amount myself.
    
    LIP-101 Proposal
    
    It is important to note that only users who have already staked and acquired voting ballots before the proposal submission can vote on LIP-101. Otherwise, they can only participate in new proposals submitted after their staking. This is one of the core designs of LikeCoin v3 governance, a topic I will elaborate on later.

* A photo taken while writing at the Taipo Railway Museum.

p.s. I have always loved Taipo, even more than my hometown Shatin. Many articles for this newsletter were written in Taipo. As I write this, a massive Category 5 fire is raging in Wan Fuk Court, Taipo, a place I often pass by. The fire is fierce, tragically causing twelve deaths and numerous injuries, which is heartbreaking. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the firefighters and all parties providing support. I hope the fire can be extinguished soon to prevent further casualties.

For those who couldn’t attend, you can watch the YouTube recording, which includes a live demonstration of the upgrade. Advanced users can find all relevant LikeCoin v3 links on the official website, like.co.

At the risk of repeating ourselves: LikeCoin v3 is officially launched, and the upgrade program has been open since Monday. Users must upgrade their LikeCoin by February 2, 2026. Starting February 3, 2026, users will no longer be able to upgrade, and v2 tokens will lose all value.

The following is the upgrade tutorial.

Preparations

If your LikeCoin is currently staked with a validator, please unstake it first.

• For users managing their accounts with Keplr, please visit wallet.keplr.app, log in to the corresponding account, and unstake all your staked LikeCoin.

• For users who log in via email, please go to stake.like.co, log in, and unstake all your staked LikeCoin.

• Unstaking requires a 21-day period.

If your LikeCoin is in an Osmosis liquidity pool, please withdraw it all first.

If you are unsure whether you have ever joined a liquidity pool, you can log in to Osmosis and check the following pools to see if your account is participating:

• app.osmosis.zone/pool/553

• app.osmosis.zone/pool/555

• app.osmosis.zone/pool/1242

There is currently still over 10,000 USD in assets across these three pools. Please retrieve your assets as soon as possible to avoid any losses.

If you have LikeCoin stored on Osmosis, or if you just withdrew assets from a liquidity pool in the previous step, please use Keplr’s IBC function to move the assets back to the LikeCoin chain. If you are unfamiliar with this process, please refer to this tutorial.

Once you have completed the above steps, or if none of the above three situations apply to you, you can proceed to the next step to upgrade your LikeCoin.

Painless Upgrade to v3

1. Visit the upgrade application. We recommend using a desktop computer and browser.

2. Read the introduction and click “Confirm.”

3. In Step 2, under the v2 section on the left, click “Connect LikeCoin Wallet.”

   • Users who originally managed their LikeCoin v2 account with Keplr, please select Keplr to log in.

   • Otherwise, please select the Email/Social option.

4. Under the v3 section on the right, click “Connect LikeCoin Wallet.”

   • For general users, logging in with Email is recommended.

   • Users familiar with Ethereum can choose to log in with a wallet like MetaMask, Rabby, etc.

5. In Step 3, sign and confirm to transfer all LikeCoin from your original wallet to the upgrade program.

6. Watch the progress bar in Step 4. Under normal circumstances, it should complete within one minute.

1. If you encounter any issues, please use the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner to contact us, and we will reply as soon as possible.

2. Click the “Deposit” button in Step 5 to log in to the LikeCoin dApp, which is 3ook.com. On your account page, deposit the LikeCoin you just upgraded to join the 90-day upgrade event and share the 10,000,000 LIKE incentive pool with the community.

At this point, the upgrade is complete, but the applications are just getting started.

We’ll wait for everyone to finish upgrading, and then we’ll be back to introduce the various features of LikeCoin v3 and how it achieves decentralized publishing.

The LikeCoin v3 upgrade, first proposed early last year, is now ready after 18 months of building community consensus and technical development. It is set to officially launch next Monday, November 3, 2025.

To celebrate and provide explanations, we will host a LikeCoin v3 Launch Party in sync with our November community meeting. The Party will primarily be in Mandarin.

Date: Monday, November 3, 2025
Time: 18:30 (GMT+8)
Join: meet.google.com/ndv-fbfx-cat
Watch: YouTube Live

Register for live notifications

Please Act Soon to Upgrade to v3

Immediately after the launch party, the token migration program will be available, allowing Likers to upgrade their LikeCoin v2 tokens to the new v3 version.

The migration program will be open for 90 days, from November 3, 2025, until early morning (GMT+8) on February 3, 2026.

Important: Starting February 3, 2026, users will no longer be able to migrate v2 tokens. Please be sure to take action within this 90-day window.

Users who have previously created or purchased Writing NFTs or NFT books should also upgrade them to v3 before February 2, 2026. The relevant upgrade program for these has been available since June.

Once the migration is complete, Likers can use v3’s two core functions: Deposit (存倉) and Stake (質押).

Deposit: Participate in Voting, Earn Rewards

Similar to v2, by locking LikeCoin, you can earn rewards while simultaneously participating in voting on community proposals.

• Migration Bonus: To encourage users to upgrade early, the community has approved a 10,000,000 LIKE reward pool to be distributed over the 90 days starting November 3. As long as you upgrade your LikeCoin and deposit it, you can share these rewards proportionally. The earlier you upgrade, the earlier you start earning rewards.

• Governance Power: Depositing LikeCoin will also grant you veLIKE tokens at a 1:1 ratio. This represents your voting power in the LikeCoin DAO, used for voting on community proposals.

Stake: Support Works, Earn Revenue

The LikeCoin v3 protocol introduces a unique “decentralized curation” feature, allowing Likers to support works while sharing in the book’s revenue. This is achieved by Likers staking LikeCoin to the books they support, enabling community-driven book selection.

• Staking as Endorsement: Unlike traditional bookstores, book curation on 3ook.com is community-led. A book’s ranking in categories and on charts is determined by the total LikeCoin staked to it. In other words, staking determines visibility, allowing the books and authors you love to be seen by more people.

• Become a Stakeholder: Staking also upgrades readers into stakeholders. For every book sale on 3ook.com, 5% of the sales revenue will be proportionally distributed to the Likers who have staked on that specific book.

Prepare for Launch

Although LikeCoin v3’s features are enhanced, it is simpler to operate than before. If you don’t believe it, please join the November 3rd launch party to witness it. We will demonstrate the upgrade, deposit, and stake processes, and will publish detailed tutorials afterward.

Before then, if you’re on pins and needles like me, feel free to get these preparations done first:

• Register on 3ook.com.

• Upgrade your v2 NFT books and Writing NFTs.

• Mark the November 3rd launch party on your calendar.

Finally, the day is almost here. Somehow, it feels almost unreal.