If you're considering entering the ecosystem of a leading DeFi protocol, this checklist will help you avoid many pitfalls:

**Step 1: Ask yourself how much you can lose.** How much loss can your principal withstand? This determines whether you'll be aggressive and go all-in or take a cautious small-scale approach.

**Step 2: Supplement necessary knowledge.** Review official documentation, community discussions, and risk disclosures. Especially understand the liquidation mechanism—misunderstanding this can lead to severe losses.

**Step 3: Use small amounts to verify the process.** Take a sum of money you can completely afford to lose, and go through the entire process—from collateralizing, generating stablecoins, to repayment. Check actual Gas fees, user experience, and time costs to see if they meet your expectations.

**Step 4: Have the right tools.** Reliable on-chain wallets, Gas fee monitoring, secure cross-chain bridges—these infrastructure essentials cannot be overlooked.

**Step 5: Have a plan to make money.** Clarify your target return rate. Under what price or conditions will you exit? After participating, regularly check collateral ratios, lending rates, and market volatility—this is not a set-and-forget activity.

DeFi opportunities are indeed plentiful, but those who profit are always well-prepared and disciplined in execution. Protocols like $LISTA represent a new form of finance, but only if you truly understand what they are doing.