Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Golem (@web3_golem)
Trump not only changed the rules of the Meme coin game, triggering a wave of political, economic and internet industry celebrities to issue personal Meme coins, but also changed the trajectory of some participants. In the world of Meme, players generally fantasize about getting rich overnight with a single coin, but those who can truly seize the opportunity and achieve a leap in wealth are few and far between.
CryptoD, relying on his keen insight and unique strategy, made tens of millions of dollars in the TRUMP project. And who would have thought that by the end of 2023, he entered the Meme coin market with only 1 SOL (about $30) as his initial capital, and ultimately achieved an amazing growth of over $20 million in assets. Is his success just a coincidence?
In this exclusive interview with Odaily, CryptoD publicly shares for the first time his journey from being a newcomer to becoming a leader in the Meme coin field, and how he seized opportunities in a series of "large MC memecoin" projects such as TRUMP and Moodeng. Next, let's dive into CryptoD's world and uncover the secrets behind his success.
Focused on secondary trading, entered the Meme market with 1 SOL at the end of 2023 and progressed to A9
Odaily: What was the trigger that led you to enter the crypto market?
CryptoD: I actually entered this circle in 2016 when I was still in college. Through the introduction of a friend, I first came into contact with cryptocurrencies, when the price of BTC was around $300.
Although I knew nothing about this field at the time, I blindly bought a few bitcoins. When the price doubled, I was very happy to sell them, but I didn't realize that was just the beginning of a future story.
After graduating and completing military service, I deeply felt that blockchain could be a major development opportunity in the next 10 years, so I decided to enter the Web3 industry. During my work, I have held positions such as marketing, VC researcher, VC trader, and exchange BD, accumulating some industry experience.
Until the end of 2023, I resigned from my job and started to focus on operating my own community.
Odaily: How did you make your first fortune in the crypto market?
CryptoD: My first fortune in the crypto circle can be traced back to the previous bull market, when I focused on the secondary market, and my assets once reached hundreds of millions of dollars at the peak. However, I lost most of the gains in the bear market, which made me fully understand the importance of asset allocation and risk diversification.
Odaily: How much initial capital did you invest in trading Meme coins, and what is the current asset level?
CryptoD: At the end of 2023, I entered the Meme circle with 1 SOL, and now my assets have exceeded $20 million, which is at the "A9 (Assets 9)" level in RMB terms.
Odaily: Why did you choose to enter the Meme track at the end of 2023?
CryptoD: At the end of 2023, I noticed that on-chain tools were gradually maturing, and more and more Bots were entering this market. In the past, DEX has been relatively quiet, mainly due to poor trading experience, but the emergence of Bots has effectively solved this pain point. It is for this reason that I started to get involved in this field from that time. As the profits gradually accumulated, I became more confident that the track I had chosen was correct, which also provided more confidence and motivation for my future direction.
Seizing TRUMP was not just luck, but persisting in going big with small
Odaily: GMGN data shows that you made $17.2 million, about 123 million RMB, on TRUMP, with an entry cost of $450,000 and a 38x return. Can you share the thought process of your investment in TRUMP, why you dared to invest $450,000 at one time, and what were the key trading decisions?
CryptoD: I usually maintain over 15 hours of energy use on GMGN to collect on-chain information, so when TRUMP came out, I was online.
Initially, it was a group friend who first posted the relevant news in the community. At that time, the market cap was about $250 million. I immediately went to check it out, and found that Trump had first released the message on his social platform TruthSocial, and you could only see the specific contract address after clicking into the official website. My first reaction was that it might be a scam or a theft, after all, there had been cases of fake Trump coins before. However, later in my GMGN monitoring addresses, some addresses I was following were constantly buying TRUMP, which alerted me.
To further confirm the authenticity of the news, I found that the TRUMP coin's official website allowed Americans to purchase with credit cards, which meant it had high compliance requirements. This convinced me that this time it should be real.
So I seized this opportunity and put all my $450,000 on-chain funds into TRUMP. I'm also grateful to GMGN for allowing me to buy in smoothly during the on-chain congestion period. But I didn't transfer more funds from CEX to the chain to increase my position, because I thought $450,000 was the maximum risk capital I could accept to be wiped out. The subsequent trend is known to everyone, TRUMP soared from a $200 million market cap to $70 billion, and I also successfully reaped $17.2 million from it.
Odaily: Before Trump, what other "large MC memecoin" projects did you capture? What were the differences in investment costs for different Meme coins?
CryptoD: My fame did not rise until after the "Hippo War". At that time, Moodeng, I started from a $2 million market cap and "milked" it all the way to a peak of $700 million, which was also the first time I gained widespread attention in the circle. "Hippo" was also the first Meme coin that I made a single-coin profit of over $1 million.
Subsequently, I continued to explore potential projects with the community, and almost every "large MC memecoin" with significant influence was captured by us, with the entry price close to the bottom, such as arc, Swarms, YNE, Buzz, RIF, URO, etc. The total profit before the TRUMP battle was about $3 million.
The average cost I put into a Meme coin is related to the market cap when I discovered it. Usually, I will take 0.2% to 1% of the total supply of that token. For example, if the market cap at the time of discovery is $1 million, I will invest about $2,000 to $10,000; if the market cap is $10 million, I will invest about $20,000 to $100,000.
The purpose is to avoid holding too many chips and causing the big players to abandon the project, while still being able to achieve a good risk-reward ratio. GMGN's profit and loss calculation function can help me review each trade very well.
Odaily: People often only see the successful part of others, while the hardships are rarely asked about. Before TRUMP, have you experienced any losses that left a deep impression on you? Share the process and the lessons learned.
CryptoD: It's true that there is no such thing as eternal profits in the world, but playing Meme has a significant advantage, which is the ability to go big with small. Losses are usually limited, as long as you can maintain a "small loss, big gain" strategy in the long run and maintain a positive EV, the asset curve can achieve steady growth.
More importantly, never go big with big, and don't go all-in due to FOMO on a single coin, as this behavior has extremely high risk and may lead to huge losses. Prudent capital management and rational decision-making are the keys to long-term success.
Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified terms translated as requested:As for me personally, I don't seem to have experienced any particularly impressive losses so far, because every time I buy a token, I have already mentally prepared myself for the possibility of losing everything. This mindset allows me to face risks rationally, and even if I lose or go to zero, it is all within my control.
Therefore, this strategy not only reduces psychological pressure, but also allows me to focus more on the long-term investment return goals.
Odaily: Why are you able to continuously capture such big Meme opportunities like Moodeng and TRUMP?
CryptoD: Normally, I almost spend the whole day monitoring the GMGN scanning page, conducting detailed research on every token that is launched on the external market. At the same time, community members are also doing similar things, and those who discover first-hand information usually share it with the community immediately, and we all conduct research and analysis together, and then decide whether to participate.
In addition, I also regularly collect some smart wallet addresses and add them to GMGN's address monitoring system. The buy signals from these addresses are also an important way of scanning the chain.
Good community + good tools + good strategy = Achieving long-term returns
Odaily: Your Meme Alpha community "1000X GEM" is gradually gaining popularity in the Chinese region, why did you build this community?
CryptoD: In the Meme circle, information is equivalent to money, and buying 5 minutes earlier can bring 10 times the returns. This was also the original intention of establishing the community - to create a platform for information exchange, so that everyone can share valuable information with each other. However, with the rapid growth of the community, the strength of the members began to vary, and even some scam groups that exploited the group members later appeared, so I decided to establish an NFT group to solve these problems.
After the community's reputation increased, I also received various advertising invitations every day, but my answer was always: "If your project is good enough, I will naturally discover and buy it myself, no need for advertising fees." So if a project really has strength, you don't need to find me to pay for advertising fees, instead I will find it myself and make a purchase.
Odaily: You have mentioned GMGN many times, why did you choose GMGN as a common trading tool, and what usage tips can you share?
CryptoD: First of all, for beginners, I suggest starting by entering a learning environment, no matter whose group you join, the environment is crucial.
It's just like learning English, the best way to improve your English level is to immerse yourself in an English-speaking environment and force yourself to actively learn. It's the same with "dog fighting", being in a high-intensity "dog fighting" environment can greatly promote your growth.
Then it's about choosing the right tools. I recommend GMGN, the reasons are self-evident, GMGN has really helped me a lot in achieving my performance. Beginners can first collect some "smart money" addresses, although they may have no clue at the beginning, but they can also find resources on Twitter, and then add these addresses to GMGN's address monitoring system. GMGN's address monitoring speed and data analysis functions can help me quickly screen projects, see the token distribution structure, and who is participating in buying and selling. After collecting the smart money addresses, the next focus is to understand the characteristics of each smart money, and see what tracks they are good at. But remember, don't blindly follow, and don't buy things you don't understand, because gains and losses come from the same source, it's all about realized cognition.
Finally, it's about position sizing and stop-loss/take-profit training. I suggest that newcomers to the Solana Meme market should not try to buy the dips or average down, as 99% of the projects on Sol are one-wave pumps, the take-profit strategy should start from doubling the initial investment, and GMGN's limit order function can well implement this.
Odaily: The huge wealth effect brought by TRUMP has led more and more secondary players or crypto newbies to join the Meme primary market. What advice or experience can you share with Meme newcomers who want to earn 10x or 100x returns?
CryptoD: To me, the primary market is similar to playing Texas Hold'em poker, both involve uncertain opponents, devs, market maker exploitation analysis, and non-exploitable long-term strategy design.
Here are a few similarities I think:
The biggest risk in the primary market is "becoming the bagholder" or being exploited by other players (such as whales, devs, market makers)
The concept of Texas Hold'em GTO (game theory optimal) strategy tells us that we should design a balanced strategy to avoid being driven by emotions or overly aggressive behavior, so as to avoid being manipulated or exploited.
For example, don't go all-in on a token, but diversify your capital and set rational target prices for staged take-profits. When the FOMO is extremely high, the rational GTO strategy will tell you not to blindly chase the highs, but to make calm decisions based on mathematical probabilities and past market patterns.
Range balancing vs. market signals and position management
Texas Hold'em GTO: In each betting action, you will balance according to the opponent's actions, your own hand range, and the potential community cards, with a combination of value bets and bluffs.
And the range balancing in the primary market can be analogized to how you interpret market signals and manage your capital:
Value Bet: Invest in projects you believe have intrinsic potential, such as those with an active community support or high certainty (similar to having a good hand);
Bluff: For some completely high-risk, high-return short-term speculative PVP projects, you can make small position trials, but this part should have a proportional limit to avoid excessive risk.
Rational return targets with long-term positive EV
Texas Hold'em GTO: Long-term positive EV is the key, not every hand needs to win, but to maximize overall returns.
The primary market is the same, the market volatility here is extremely high, and pursuing maximum returns in every trade may actually lead to huge losses. In the primary market, you have to accept that some projects may fail or rug, but you can still achieve asset growth through a disciplined overall strategy. We can't control the market, but we can control our own positions.
Remember, heaven does not pity those who go all-in, as long as you are alive, there is hope.
The market is not lacking in opportunities, and I am still optimistic about the development of the Meme market
Odaily: Some believe that the Meme market has become "hell-level" difficult after TRUMP, how do you see the future development of the Meme market?
CryptoD: Whenever a "large MC memecoin" appears in the market, a large number of clones will inevitably follow, and most of these clones are of a PVP nature.
After the "Hippo War", I had reminded everyone on Twitter that if a narrative is missed, don't rush, as although a few clones may succeed in breaking out, if you didn't even participate in the one that broke out, there's no need to participate in the others either, it's better to take a break and wait for the next narrative opportunity. As the time of hot spot release gets longer, the "dog fighting" difficulty will increase exponentially, and the risk of loss will also increase accordingly. The market situation after TRUMP has also verified this point, calm and patience are the key.
But I still hold a relatively optimistic attitude towards the future development of the Meme market. The success of the Trump narrative has indeed attracted a lot of real external capital to enter the market, which shows that the market is not lacking in money now, what is really lacking is quality projects. I believe that with the passage of time, the accumulation of market sentiment and the flow of capital, there will definitely be other "large MC memecoins" appearing in the future. As long as you seize the opportunity, this market is still full of possibilities.
Odaily: In addition to on-chain Memes, what other tracks are you paying attention to, and what are the reasons for your attention?
CryptoD:As long as a project can bring wealth effects, achieve mainstream success, or have innovative features, I will pay attention to it. But for now, the only ones that can do this are MEME.
