Guest Message:
The process that every crypto investor has to go through:
At first, the mountain is a mountain.
Then, the mountain is not a mountain.
Finally, the mountain is still a mountain.
At the beginning, when trading cryptocurrencies, you will only focus on the narrative, pay attention to the wallets of smart money and big players, and then especially focus on the operations of the big players. Finally, when you know the rules of this game, you will return to the first day, focusing on the narrative, capital hotspots, and the consensus of investors.
This process requires self-enlightenment, which is extremely painful but will eventually become clear. Keep it up!
Mr. Mie (@ Michael_Liu 93) is a senior investor who has transitioned from traditional finance to Web3. After graduating in 2016, he worked in an investment bank in Canada for two years and was engaged in M&A business. After getting in touch with blockchain in 2017-2018, he gradually shifted from the traditional VC perspective to cryptocurrency trading. Currently, he is operating a fund focused on the Bitcoin secondary market, and is also a well-known KOL in the Meme coin track, with over 60,000 Twitter followers in just half a year, thanks to his deep market insights and high-quality content sharing.
OKX specially invited him as the first guest in the "OKX's Friends" series in 2025, to share his in-depth thoughts on the Meme track and advice for beginners. Through the analysis from both the traditional finance and cryptocurrency perspectives, he presented a more three-dimensional market landscape for us.
The "OKX's Friends" series is a special column planned by OKX, hosted by OKX's official community ambassador Mercy (@ Mercy_okx), aiming to uncover the stories, industry insights and lessons learned from KOLs with different backgrounds, for new users to learn and refer to.
The Progression from Traditional Finance to Web3
Mercy_okx (@ Mercy_okx): Can you share your experience of entering the Web3 industry?
The Honest Mr. Mie (@ Michael_Liu 93): I entered the finance industry after graduating in 2016, first working in an investment bank in Canada for two years, and then doing M&A. My earliest contact with blockchain was a rather accidental opportunity. At the time, I was researching the enterprise service sector and participated in a conference call with Credit Suisse's research team, where they discussed blockchain technology. I had actually heard about Bitcoin in college, but I was quite skeptical about cryptocurrencies back then. It wasn't until 2017-2018 when I got in touch with Ethereum and the applications of blockchain in the enterprise service sector that I started to get interested in this field and also began investing in some early public chain projects. However, at that time I was still looking at blockchain from a traditional VC perspective. It wasn't until 2020-2021 that I officially shifted from the traditional field to cryptocurrencies, and now I'm mainly operating a Bitcoin secondary market fund.
Mercy_okx: What was the logic behind your transition from VC to focusing on Meme coin trading?
The Honest Mr. Mie: I'm the kind of person who likes to chase new opportunities, wherever the wealth effect is. The current market opportunities are clearly in the secondary market - either buy Bitcoin to earn Beta returns, or participate on-chain. However, I also experienced a period of adaptation when I first entered on-chain trading. I found that many of my friends who messaged me complained that on-chain trading was difficult to get started, and they lost money right away. In fact, I lost money for half a year myself, being "cut" by others every day. This is because even if you have a stable profitability in the secondary market, when you come to the on-chain market, you have to be re-educated by the market. So I advise everyone to accept this process calmly, because it's a necessary tuition fee.
My previous VC experience is very helpful to me now. Essentially, they are all financial markets, all human games, and the logic of market making and retail outflows in many ways is the same.
In-depth Insights into the Meme Coin Market
Mercy_okx: How did you start building your personal IP? What do you think are the key factors behind your rapid growth from a few thousand to over 60,000 followers?
The Honest Mr. Mie: I think I was quite lucky, and I managed to catch a few hot spots well. First of all, I realized very early on that in the Meme track, personal IP and influence are extremely important. Because the essence of Meme is a game of dissemination, if you are a super dissemination entity or information center, you can get closer to other information centers. In all financial markets, information asymmetry is always the most valuable.
When I started building my account, I wanted to develop it in the Meme direction. Initially, I mainly shared some of my expertise in the secondary market, such as how market makers operate, including some of the retail chasing projects like TON's Dog and Hamster at the time, and I analyzed their underlying market making and harvesting techniques. These contents resonated a lot, and the account grew from a few hundred followers to a few thousand.
Later, I started to share some of my experiences in Meme. And then the rapid rise of Solana, which I also caught. Although I was a little late, with Huilei and others already playing in Solana, I still caught some good opportunities, such as the earliest $ai16z and $ban, and now the AI concept. I think I'm good at finding where the hot money is, because my trading style is to follow the hot money.
Mercy_okx: How do you view the current development of the Meme coin market? What changes have the rise of the AI concept brought?
The Honest Mr. Mie: The current round of on-chain dividends is unstoppable, as it is essentially absorbing the liquidity of the secondary market. Why is the on-chain liquidity being absorbed by DEXes? Behind this is actually a change in the business model.
I'll use an analogy to explain: the original model was like this - I have an idea to build a car, first I find VCs to raise funds, then I list the car on the exchange and sell it to the secondary market users. The retail investors in the secondary market are actually the consumers, they use USDT to exchange the project tokens. When the market liquidity is good, if the project is producing a "Porsche", the consumers in the secondary market who buy it may even appreciate in value. But when the market liquidity is not good, and there are too many car makers, and the initial pricing is too high, the people who buy in the secondary market will become the trapped consumers rather than investors.
But now the model has changed - I have an idea, first I raise funds from the market, then I gradually build the product. Because the retail investors have the opportunity to participate very early, such as investing in the project when it's still in the blueprint stage, and then getting returns when the product is launched. This is actually grabbing the cake that VCs used to eat. Just like the project used to go through rounds of financing: angel round, A round, B round, etc., now it's a direct Fair Launch, and whether the product is good or not, whether the market accepts it or not, is directly reflected in the price.
The rise of the AI concept has brought a lot of changes, attracting a lot of institutional capital. The valuations of projects like ai16z and Swarms could not have reached this scale without institutional capital. And AI projects have changed the on-chain business model, as they actually have product demonstrations. There will be different types of investors coming in at each stage - the earliest may be P-players who think a $500,000 market cap is investable, and later as the team emerges and the product takes shape, it will attract more institutional investors. This gives a clear buy-in logic for each stage, which is a model that institutional investors really like.
Mercy_okx: Compared to the traditional primary and secondary markets, what are the unique features of the Meme coin market?
The Honest Mr. Mie: The biggest feature is that "it's easy to go to zero after buying in". The gameplay of Meme can be very diverse. In the secondary market, it's essentially a solo game of outsmarting the big players. But Meme coins are more like an MORPG, with everyone showing off their skills.
For example, as a P-player, you may be watching the market every day to catch internal market opportunities. If you are good at analyzing the order flow, you may go catch the early big player's positions. You can also be a builder, like I recently advised a friend who is not good at playing AI to talk to the Hackathon teams, see who is planning to issue coins, and establish relationships early, so that you may get some early opportunities after they finish raising funds and collecting orders.
Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified terms translated as requested:The key is to find the right angle to make money. Just like the secondary market, some people play the spot market, some play the contract market, and in the spot market there are also wave bands and holding. Each person needs to find the way that suits them best.
Mercy_okx: In your opinion, what is the most important consideration when evaluating the potential of a Meme coin project?
Maitong the Honest: I think the arrival of the AI trend has actually brought about a major change in the logic of evaluating Meme coins. In the previous Meme era, the project parties and market makers were hidden, and if you didn't know the developers or first-tier market makers, it was difficult to judge whether a project was a wash trade, a strong warehouse trade, or a conspiracy trade. At that time, you could only analyze some clues from the on-chain addresses, such as seeing how high the previous plates of the project party could be done.
But in this wave of AI, the evaluation has become more similar to the VC methodology. Because most of them are well-known teams, you can do real due diligence - directly contact community members, research the team background, and this information is all written in their personal profiles.
In project evaluation, I mainly look at three aspects:
1. Narrative potential: whether the product fits the current market hotspot;
2. Team strength: not only to look at their professional capabilities in the AI field, but also to look at their Web3 operational capabilities, including plate control, marketing and community operations;
3. Market space: for example, if a certain AI framework has already reached a valuation of 2 billion, if a new team with a strong technical background appears to do a similar direction, this is an opportunity to replicate the market.
This is actually very similar to the logic of traditional VC investing in early projects. Just like Zhenfund is known for "investing in people", in the early stages of a project, there may be nothing to look at besides the founders. But no matter what stage you participate in, the core is to look at the people, because how big a project can do depends not only on the product itself, but also on whether the team can create market sentiment, operate the project, and continue to deliver.
Mercy_okx: There are now many sub-tracks in the AI-related token space, including computing power, infrastructure, pure Meme, Agent technology framework, Launchpad platform, etc. When evaluating different types of projects, how do you balance product logic, narrative and market sentiment? Are there different evaluation criteria for different categories?
Maitong the Honest: I'll use an example of a framework-type project to explain. This round of so-called framework projects, you can understand as benchmarking public chains, and there will be various applications on top of them, such as TradeFi or games. Why is the market so keen on $Virtual and $ai16z? Because they are doing underlying frameworks, and the market has given them valuations similar to public chains.
In the AI application track, we believe that the most valuable direction besides the framework is the direction of TradeFi+AI, for two reasons:
1. Liquidity entry point: in the cryptocurrency market, the most important thing is to find where the liquidity is. TradeFi is the easiest application track to access liquidity, and if you can capture the transaction fees, this product will be very valuable.
2. User interaction frequency: in the cryptocurrency field, the most common user activity is trading. So the AI application with the highest interaction frequency is likely to be the TradeFi+AI direction.
Practice has also proven this, for example, projects like Stoic and Berg, whose market value quickly rose from $2-3 million to several tens of millions within two weeks. This is because the market will copy successful logic.
In comparison, those pure concept, pure storytelling or pure Meme projects, except for a few cases, do not have high market recognition. Because the AI track has entered the 4.0 stage, it is no longer as simple as just releasing a concept to raise money, the market is more concerned about the product landing situation and viable business models.
As for projects like $swarms that can reach very high valuations, it is because they are similar to public chains and can capture all the transaction liquidity within the ecosystem. This is also why the price of $Virtual should be higher than $ai16z, because it not only provides a technical framework, but also taps into actual liquidity. In the future, $ai16z is likely to also move towards liquidity, because in Web3, the real moat is not only technology, but also the possession of liquidity.
This is different from the AI competition in Web2. Web2 AI is more like an arms race, competing in terms of financial strength and hardware reserves, while in Web3, liquidity has become an extremely critical factor.
Mercy_okx: What are the characteristics of the Meme coin ecosystem on different public chains?
Maitong the Honest: There are different characteristics for both retail investors and project parties. First, let's talk about Solana. Its pace is particularly fast, retail investors may be wiped out overnight, and project parties may also lose their coins overnight. On Solana, it is very difficult to maintain a plate of 5-10M market value through natural traffic, it gives project parties very little room for error.
There are a lot of rug trades on BSC, and there are also a lot of startups, but if you come across good developers and teams, the space can be quite large. However, since the natural traffic is small, you basically have to rely on your own plate pulling, so the projects that can run out on BSC generally have very strong financial backers behind them.
The feature of Base is that the official is closely connected with the project parties and the support is relatively strong. For example, Jess (the person in charge of the Base ecosystem) often helps the project parties make calls. And there are many technical teams on Base doing some good products. As a retail investor on Base, one of the better points is that the number of projects is relatively small, so the choice pressure is smaller, and you can focus on the projects with official endorsement, which will be relatively more stable.
Beginner's Guide
Mercy_okx: For newcomers just entering the market, what advice do you have on how to allocate funds reasonably and build a sustainable investment system?
Maitong the Honest: The primary advice is not to buy VC coins in the secondary market. If you don't understand trading, it is recommended to allocate Bitcoin as a holding coin, and also appropriately allocate mainstream coins like Solana and Ethereum. If you want to trade Meme, it is recommended to buy blue-chip Meme coins that have been verified in the secondary market, such as Doge and Pepe.
Regarding fund allocation, I recommend that newcomers who want to participate in on-chain trading only take 10% of their total capital to participate. For example, if you have $100,000, just take $10,000 to gamble on-chain, and you can invest a few hundred dollars in each coin to start trying. Never go All In. The best way is to be an observer first, and when you can consistently generate profits in this market, gradually increase the scale of your capital.
Before finding a stable profit method, it is recommended not to pursue the profits of the inner plate. I have seen many friends frantically "buy the dips" in the inner plate, but they are often harvested. It is recommended to start observing projects with a market value of 5-10M, and you can invest 0.05-0.1 ETH each time to try. When you find that you are making money overall on Meme, you can then expand your position. This is not a gambling game, if you treat it as gambling, you will definitely lose badly.
Mercy_okx: How to build information acquisition channels?
Maitong the Honest: The most important thing is not to focus on WeChat official accounts. Go follow a few big, non-scamming KOLs in the industry. Pay special attention to the first recommendations (Calls) of the KOLs, rather than their subsequent recommendations, because the market changes too fast, the odds of the later calls may already be different.
In addition, you need to find a group of friends you trust and have complementary abilities to discuss with. In this market, teamwork is often more successful than going it alone. Each person may have their own advantages, and complementing each other can go further.
Suggestions and Outlook for OKX
Mercy_okx: What is your overall impression of OKX?
Maitong the Honest: The OKX team is very cutting-edge and interacts very closely with the community. Including the product team and KOL operations colleagues, they are very close to the market. They have also done a good job on on-chain tools and wallets, providing free services from the beginning, showing very good strategic vision. In the face of the transformation of this wave of on-chain trends, they have also moved very quickly, and are among the best in all exchanges in terms of foresight. I have not yet encountered any relevant situations to evaluate their response speed to problems. But overall, OKX has a very serious attitude in serving users.
This article is for reference only. This article represents the views of the author and does not represent the position of OKX. This article is not intended to provide (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation to buy, sell or hold digital assets; (iii) financial, accounting, legal or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involves high risks and may be subject to significant fluctuations. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for your financial situation. Please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals for your specific situation. Please be responsible for understanding and complying with the relevant applicable laws and regulations in your local area.
