Lesson 10 — The Honest Loop: Plan, Speak, Verify

Move once. Watch twice. Build rhythm before reaction.

The yellow note from yesterday still sits beside your keyboard.
Three words — Swap. Mirror. Revoke. — waiting like choreography.
Ava watches you read them, then flips the page in her notebook.

“This,” she says, “is where theory becomes rhythm.
No rush. No guessing. Just precision.”

Plan. Speak. Verify.

“This is where trading actually begins,” she says.
“Not when you click, but when you can describe what you’re about to do — clearly, out loud.
A confused plan becomes an expensive plan.”

She leans back.
“You already built the door — the wallet, the seed, the posture.
Now you’ll make your first motion through it.
Tiny, deliberate, complete.
A loop you can repeat forever.”

Understanding the Ground

You open your bookmarks.
A row of quiet stars waits — the verified sites you built earlier.
You click the one labeled DEX — Official Page.

The site loads without glitter.
No countdowns, no banners.
Just a simple swap box and an empty graph.

“Real infrastructure looks boring,” Ava says.
“Excitement belongs to speculation.
What we’re building is repeatability.”

She points to the URL.
“Read it. Letter by letter.
That pause protects more people than any firewall ever built.”

You read it aloud; she nods.
“That’s the first confirmation — your own voice.”

Defining the Experiment

“We’ll use a pair that teaches more than it tempts,” she says.
“ETH → USDC.
It moves value, but doesn’t promise growth.”

You frown. “Why not something volatile?”
“Because this isn’t about gain,” she answers.
“It’s about precision.
A calm trader can always scale precision.
A frantic one just scales chaos.”

She has you write the plan before touching the screen:

Amount: coffee-money — about €5 to €10
Slippage: 0.5 %
Network: Ethereum (ERC-20)
Gas: a few euro — the toll

“These aren’t numbers,” Ava says.
“They’re boundaries.
Boundaries make clarity visible.”

You say the plan aloud, slowly.
“ETH to USDC, half-percent slippage, on Ethereum, gas a few euro.”
The words sound simple, almost mundane.

“That’s the point,” Ava says.
“When you can describe a trade without adrenaline, you’re finally the one in control.”

Connection and Confirmation

You click Connect Wallet.
Rabby runs its simulation; MetaMask expands its text; Trust asks politely for approval.
Each window is an invitation, not a command.

“This is the first handshake between your key and the world,” Ava says.
“Nothing moves yet — the system is just asking to see you.”

You read the details carefully — address, network, purpose — then confirm.

“Every future mistake begins with a blind confirmation,” she says softly.
“You just avoided it by reading.”

Letting the Chain Speak

The dApp shows Processing…
Ava doesn’t look at it.
She points to your explorer bookmark instead.

“Interfaces tell stories. The chain tells truth. Listen there.”

You paste your address into Etherscan.
A new line appears: Pending → Success.

“That’s motion verified,” Ava says.
“Every trade you’ll ever make is just this — an intent that becomes proof.”

You open the transaction and read:
From: your address
To: DEX router
Tokens: ETH out, USDC in

Ava has you copy the transaction hash beneath today’s date.
“That hash,” she says, “is your anchor.
If every interface vanished tomorrow, that string would still prove what you did.”

You feel the shift — the first sense of permanence.
No confetti. No dopamine.
Just evidence.

Why the Small Loop Matters

Ava turns the yellow note over and draws a circle.
“Every trader’s safety lives in this loop: act → verify → record → breathe.
You’ve just completed one rotation.”

She looks at you, not the screen.
“Most people skip the middle two steps and call it experience.
We call it noise.”

She taps the notebook once.
“This wasn’t a trade for profit.
It was proof that calm works.”

You glance at the explorer again — one neat line, green checkmark beside it.

Ava smiles faintly.
“That’s enough motion for today.
Next, we open a window — on purpose — and learn how to close it clean.”

Approvals and Revokes: Power You Lend and Take Back

Ava draws a small rectangle in your notebook — a line between you and a contract.
“This,” she says, “is the window we’ll open next.
Approvals make movement possible, but every open door needs closure.”

She underlines one phrase beneath it:
“Control isn’t what you hold. It’s what you can take back.”

She closes the notebook softly.
“Tomorrow, we open the window — and practice closing it before the draft begins.”