Editor | Wu Blockchain about Blockchain
This article comes from an exclusive interview with Christian, a crypto investor and entrepreneur born in the 2000s, by GuiTalk. Wu Blockchain was authorized to edit and reprint it. Christian is one of the most popular Chinese entrepreneurs in this cycle. He reviewed in depth the whole process from entering the circle in college to founding the crypto payment project Infini. The interview covers three core sections: one is the transformation of his personal investment path, from decentralized allocation to the practical experience of "logic-driven + concentrated holdings"; the second is the judgment of the current market structure and sentiment, including the understanding of the bull-bear cycle, the main funds and the essence of the project. Christian also shared his reflections on the gains and losses of heavy positions such as Cheems, GMX, and Coinbase, and pointed out that the current logic of currency selection should focus on the three major standards of "team structure, token structure, and consensus concentration."
The content of this article does not represent Wu Blockchain views, but is merely a sharing of the interviewee's personal investment experience. Wu Blockchain does not promote or endorse any investment behavior. Readers are requested to strictly abide by local laws and regulations and not participate in illegal financial investment activities. Please search for audio on Wu Blockchain Xiaoyuzhou channel and Youtube channel.
Christian Personal Background
Christian: I am now the founder of Infini. We officially launched this project in August and September last year. Infini is essentially a New Bank that hopes to provide services such as savings, financial management, and payment. In the future, it may also expand to transfers and more bank-level businesses. It is a Crypto Native project.
Because I am not very old, my previous background was basically starting a business while studying at school. After joining the Crypto field, I mainly did investment. I also founded a fund called NextGen Digital Ventures with two seniors, which was founded about two years ago. Our first fund was closed at the beginning of this year, so now I focus most of my time on Infini's products and marketing.
I first came into contact with Crypto when I was a freshman or sophomore in college. At that time, NFTs were very popular, and many friends around me were discussing art-related content. I also like art history, so I think this field is worth paying attention to. At the beginning, I remember that it was generative art such as Art Blocks, which is a code-based art form, which I felt was very novel.
After I joined Crypto, I first focused on NFT and GameFi. In 2021, there were many representative Ponzi schemes, such as stablecoin projects such as Terra and Luna. As a novice and a leek, I also participated in them. Gradually, I found that I was more interested in DeFi, and there are indeed many real scenarios and real yield in this field. So I invested most of my time in this field until I founded Infini. Before that, I also invested in many DeFi-related projects, so I went through this track completely and finally decided to do what Infini is doing now.
There were two main reasons why we decided to start Infini. The first was that our team was very optimistic about asset management, because we found that arbitrage was a particularly interesting type of investment in Crypto, and there were not so many "neutral strategies" or so-called "risk-free returns" opportunities in traditional finance. Although there may be smart contract risks or theft risks behind it, the overall investment logic and the excess returns that can be obtained from arbitrage made me feel that it was a direction with a threshold and worth exploring.
And when you talk to people outside the circle, even fund managers or practitioners from traditional finance, they often don’t understand this field and therefore have prejudices. But everyone also knows that not all Crypto projects are scams or Rug Pulls. Projects like Ethereum are still very stable to this day and can capture returns far higher than traditional assets such as US Treasury bonds.
So our goal at the time was to create a "super app" - a real financial app. Because most DeFi projects are still protocol-driven and only target users on the chain, which is relatively niche. We hope to provide these profit opportunities to a wider user group through a smoother and more user-friendly experience.
The second reason is that we found that, especially in the matter of "Crypto Card", neither we nor other projects in the industry have done a good job. But we saw that users do have this demand. From the initial idea, to internal testing, to online, to today, users are very enthusiastic, and it has helped them solve many practical problems. This is also an important reason why we decided to start Infini together.
I think financial management and payment complement each other, although there are some differences. Different users use products for different purposes. Some people may care more about financial management and investment returns, while others need more convenient payment.
As our project progresses, we have indeed observed that many countries around the world have underdeveloped financial infrastructure, banking systems or Fintech, and they do not have good products. Crypto has a natural advantage, which is that it can quickly expand the global market and quickly find out which regions of users are interested in the product. This positive feedback has also brought greater confidence and motivation to our team.
In fact, compared to those who are very good at speculating on on-chain meme, or those who are particularly sensitive to Alpha and can multiply their profits several times, I am quite envious. They do have their own talents and strengths.
But from my perspective, I think there are two points that have helped me the most so far. The first point is that I have always been interested in new things and willing to delve into them. Even if you are a person who is good at speculating in cryptocurrencies, or a member of the so-called "conspiracy group" that issues cryptocurrencies and engages in project marketing every day, in essence, they have mastered a set of rules, and then studied these rules thoroughly and used them more skillfully. Like James, who has been very popular recently, he is also very young, but I think he understands this set of rules and knows how to play in this track. So in different tracks and fields, I can find the direction and go deeper relatively quickly.
The second point, which I think is very important now, is to be down-to-earth, not anxious, and willing to focus on one thing for a long time. This is actually quite difficult, especially in the Crypto trading environment. Everyone tends to pursue opportunities to double in the short term, eager to make 100 times in two days. But the people who are really willing to hold Bitcoin for a long time and firmly do one thing are actually a minority, especially among young people.
Of course, everyone’s situation is different. Some people have a lot of money and can do long-term investment; some people don’t have much money at the beginning and hope to catch a project that can return a thousand times. These are all understandable. But the key is that you have to understand yourself, know what you are good at, what investment style suits you, and stick to it.
In the past two years, I have seen many people who originally had a set of logic or direction, but later changed their mindset or were influenced by people around them, which led to their own operations being distorted. I think whether it is investment or entrepreneurship, it is essentially the same. You have to stay calm, know your own rhythm, direction and style, and stick to your own rhythm.
How to judge the bull and bear market
Christian: I am not a professional in quantitative indicators. Our fund has used many data indicators in making decisions before, but we later found that none of these indicators can be effective throughout all cycles.
So I personally judge more from the emotional side, including that I have basically not sold any of my coins until now. I think the core reason is that I feel that this round of bull market has not yet reached the craziest stage, and there is still a significant gap compared to the rounds in 2021 and 2022. So my current judgment on the market is: I am willing to continue to wait.
Of course, the premise is that my cost of opening a position at the beginning of this round is relatively low, so even if the profit is withdrawn, it is still acceptable. This is why I prefer to continue holding and am optimistic about the development of the subsequent market.
As for the big cognitive differences, I think many people now actually have similar feelings, that is, it may be difficult for large-scale Altcoin to return. On the one hand, liquidity and narrative logic have changed a lot in fundamentals, and people have become smarter and are no longer easily moved by boring and repetitive narratives.
On the other hand, the current listing strategies of exchanges also show that liquidity is still relatively dispersed. Therefore, I tend to believe that if there is a wave of Altcoin, it may only be concentrated on the top few projects, those that can form a consensus on their own tracks and are jointly promoted by large investors and institutions.
So from my investment perspective, I will only focus on these two types of targets now.
If I were to make an irresponsible prediction, I would still believe in two points.
The first point is that the stability of Bitcoin prices is indeed largely due to the support of a large number of external institutions. This is a very objective reality: even if the original old players who hold coins have been cleared out, the purchasing power of compliant institutions is still very strong. Now some people have begun to mention that these institutions may gradually choose some projects that meet their "aesthetics" as new investment targets, such as the old generation of DeFi projects, or some emerging projects such as PENDLE and Ether.fi that have emerged in this cycle.
I think these projects are valid under the logic of institutions. The core is, if these secondary market institutions really want to find targets other than Bitcoin in the future, what kind of projects will make them willing to enter the market? It is definitely not Memecoin, from the perspective of narrative logic.
The second point I think is that when choosing a project, you must look for a coin with a clear main force behind it. The "main force" of a small project may be an individual, an institution, or a group of investors who have reached a consensus. Looking at it in a larger perspective, for example, some particularly popular Memecoins, their "main force" may be the strong consensus formed by the retail community. But no matter which level, the core lies in whether this main force is still willing to continue to support and promote the market of this coin.
There is an interesting vicious cycle in the market now. Many project owners or so-called dealers find it difficult to cash out smoothly even if they are listed on the top exchanges because of the bad market conditions. Not to mention the subsequent need to maintain the price of the currency and continue to promote the development of the project. The costs and challenges in the middle are actually very large. As a result, many projects have become assembly line-style factory outputs, without any sincerity or long-term planning.
So from my perspective, I will try to avoid projects that have been abandoned by the main players. I prefer to look for coins that still have the main players and driving force. This is my current investment mentality.
New narrative opportunities: On-chain US stocks and derivatives
Christian: Recently, I have been thinking about the possibility that a route like Hyperliquid might be copied. Hyperliquid's idea is actually very traditional, but through a very strong product experience and high control, it has successfully replicated an opportunity. I think this model is very interesting. To be honest, from the perspective of this round of product tracks and fundamentals, there is actually nothing particularly eye-catching, so I prefer to spend time paying attention to derivative projects.
Another topic that has been discussed a lot is “on-chain U.S. stocks.” I think the core point is that after the change of the U.S. government, the SEC’s enforcement has been somewhat relaxed, which actually encouraged the development of projects such as RWA, synthetic assets of U.S. stocks, and derivatives. With looser supervision, there is more room for development.
Currently, I see two main implementation paths in the market. One is to map synthetic assets of US stocks to the chain through L2 (Layer 2), allowing users to trade these spot assets directly; the other is Perpetual DEX (decentralized perpetual contract exchange). In fact, these two routes have already been done by SNX (Synthetix) in the last cycle.
I think that in this round, with the background of looser regulation, some project owners may be bolder and more creative, trying some very "fancy" or even "sexy" designs, or introducing new liquidity mechanisms to hype these concepts. I think this is the direction that I have observed that many people are trying to do.
Other aspects, such as DeFi payments, such as the Infini we are working on, are actually more applications that actually implement products and solve user problems. It is not hyped by the economic model of the currency, nor is it driven by narratives. You can also feel that even if some projects are launched with new narratives, they cannot really make people buy them. People pay more attention to whether they can be practical.
So I think the trend of this bull market may be a little different. The new narrative is led by teams that really make products, build infrastructure, and solve practical needs. The information flow gradually accumulated by these projects may bring more sustainable opportunities. This is why we choose to stick to doing this.
If you are making a standard product, I can’t think of any reason why a new Crypto project can compete with these traditional platforms in this field. Their products, services, and processes are already very mature.
Therefore, the only way out for Crypto startups is to do what these traditional platforms dare not do, such as some of the more fancy derivatives designs and structural innovations I just mentioned, such as the complex Ponzi structure of the "three-disk model". In the final analysis, everyone wants two things: one is whether the asset itself is fresh enough, and there are indeed not many fresh coins on the market at present; the other is whether this innovation can drive global trading enthusiasm.
For example, the US stocks on the chain are relatively new to Crypto users. If combined with a complex but eye-catching structural design, I think this may be the only practical path. If it is just an ordinary trading market, just to let people buy US stocks on the chain, then I think such a project is meaningless.
Investment strategy evolution and entry and exit judgment
Christian: I am actually more casual now. At first, about two years ago, I did invest in a more standard way, for example, I would divide the funds into several parts: 10% in this track, 20% in that track, etc. I remember that when I was very "naive" at the beginning, I was deeply influenced by Teacher Su Zhu and some other KOLs. That cycle happened to be the time when various "Ethereum killer" public chains broke out, such as NEAR, Cosmos, Harmony and so on.
So at that time, I would really carefully deploy funds according to the proportion, and would allocate according to different tracks, the leading and non-leading stocks in the same track, and their cost-effectiveness. But later I found that this method was quite "leek" and too mechanical.
Now I have fewer investments in the secondary market. Basically, I just hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and other mainstream currencies. Occasionally, I will allocate some other positions, such as Curve. I have never sold Curve because of a coincidence: Curve had some events at that time, and a friend introduced me to Michael, so I bought some and have held it until now.
If I were asked to choose a project again, I would tend to follow this logic - for example, if I find that the price of a project is particularly low due to an event and is close to its worst stage in history, then I might look back at those DeFi projects, or some Memecoins.
I think projects like Memecoin, which have strong consensus, are particularly prone to rebound when market sentiment picks up. As you can see, these coins have performed poorly in the past few months, but after a slight recovery last month, the projects that have fallen the most have rebounded the most. So my current strategy is: the main position is allocated to large projects, and other small positions are placed in Memecoin or opportunity coins, and wait and see the market performance.
For me, first of all, I don’t buy for short-term operation. I am not good at making decisions based on rumors or gossip. Although I sometimes listen to some news from friends and occasionally buy, there are also cases where I buy and get stuck and have to sell at a loss. So my overall style is that if it reaches a point or cycle I set, I will choose to clear the position all at once, and I don’t do frequent partial sales.
Specifically, I will set a rough price range for myself, such as starting from $120,000 for Bitcoin, and then I will gradually sell in batches. Ethereum is currently around $2,600. If it can rise to $4,800 or even break through $5,000 to set a new high, it will be a very high level for me, and I will probably sell almost all my positions at that time.
I don't have a strong ability to judge the top, nor do I do swing trading. The main basis is market liquidity and overall sentiment. If the market is particularly hot and liquidity is particularly good at that time, it is a signal for me to exit. Although it sounds simple, the actual operation does not rely on technical indicators, but more on perception.
It is really difficult to sell at the top accurately. For example, I bought a lot of Coinbase before. After Trump took office, Coinbase rose to more than 300 US dollars. I sold about one-third of my position at that time, which was considered a relatively high point. Later, it fell by half.
At that time, I felt that the main upward trend was too obvious, so I sold it decisively. I did not sell Ethereum this time, but fortunately, the market has been stable recently. And because I am mainly starting a business now, it allows me to focus more on work and I don’t have to stare at the market all day to think about buying and selling points.
Cheems Investment Review: From Accidental Investment to Long-term Binding
Christian: Actually, the Cheems incident has always been a special "coincidence" case for me. At that time, I didn't understand Memecoin at all, and I didn't realize that I might have some influence. To be honest, at that time, none of us had a clear understanding of the concept of "liquidity". Like me, I was also a novice at the time. Many people looked at the market value of the project at the beginning, ignoring the liquidity. This is actually a very typical logic of a novice.
Cheems is such a typical case. At that time, the market was in a rebound period in the bear market. They sent a ZK letter, and then a friend recommended me to participate, so I bought it casually. As a result, I bought quite a lot, and then I was trapped. Since I was trapped, I could only continue to build this project. Later, I bought a lot more, and finally it became a long-term binding.
There was almost no liquidity at that time, so you had to be tied to the project. If you didn't promote it yourself, it would be difficult to get started. Until Cheems was relaunched on BNB Chain last year, I still worked very hard to promote it, attract people, do communication, and build a community. Watching it go online, lock up, and then actually connect to the BNB ecosystem, the process was really hard.
Of course, I haven't gotten out of the trap yet, and I won't sell. So for me, this is not just an investment, but a participation in a process. I comfort myself by saying that the significance of this matter is no longer about making money, but about the experience of participating in the whole process.
If you just buy at a low price, call your own shill, and then pull up to sell, this process is actually very empty. But I am willing to try to see if I can make this project go further through long-term participation across cycles.
I still believe in this logic. Especially recently, many people have realized that the BNB ecosystem is still one of the most dominant in the entire industry. For example, when Binance Alpha was launched recently, Cheems was the first token to be launched. It was criticized a lot at the time, and I didn’t think it would become a "great innovation" at the time. But now you see, brushing and scoring have become the mainstream.
This shows that if Binance really wants to promote something, it is indeed capable of doing it. The success of BNB Chain is only a matter of time, and their strategic direction is clear.
So from this perspective, Cheems can occupy a key position on the BNB Chain, with a certain historical accumulation and stable K-line trend, which actually lays the foundation for its outbreak in the bull market.
Of course, this is different from the short-term burst rhythm of some Memecoins on Solana. My style is not suitable for the short-term, high-volatility, and strong-operation trading rhythm. I am more accustomed to binding long-term logic and building slowly. So this is the relationship between me and Cheems.
Coinbase and GBTC’s Sentiment Cycle Decisions
Christian: If we really want to talk about heavy positions, it must be two targets that many people know: one is GBTC and the other is Coinbase. At that time, both our fund and I personally invested a lot in these two targets. That period happened to be when FTX collapsed, and the entire market sentiment was extremely depressed. It was also the period in which I spent the most time on investment and trading in those years.
Later, I figured out a core logic: try to choose large targets. At that time, I hardly touched Altcoin. Looking back, this was a wise decision. Because I think the institutional liquidity in the US stock market is better, and both targets have been significantly oversold.
For example, Coinbase fell by 90% at the lowest point, and GBTC also had a huge negative premium. We judged that this was actually an irrational mistake driven by emotions, rather than a fundamental problem. So we heavily bet on these two to outperform Bitcoin. Looking back, this was one of the few decisions we made correctly.
Then there are several typical examples. One is Curve, which I just mentioned. That's because Curve's decline was very drastic at the time, but we judged that it was due to liquidity and short-term events, not fundamental problems. Like GBTC, its underlying asset - Bitcoin was still there at the time, and there was no change. It was obviously unreasonable to have such a large price increase.
Coinbase's price-to-book ratio was very low at the time. Although the company was in a loss-making state at the time and it was impossible to look at its PE, it had more than 5 billion US dollars in cash on its books and had invested in many projects, and the valuations of those targets were also reflected in the numbers. The company's market value fell below 7 billion US dollars at the time, which was clearly an example of being wrongly killed by market sentiment.
Curve's logic is similar. Its status, applications, and community holders were all relatively sound at the time. We believe that the market underestimated its value.
Of course, there are two negative cases - Arbitrum's native currency and GMX. These two are the projects where I lost the most money in investment. They can be said to be the few secondary targets that have made me lose money and the losses are not small.
Looking back, I think the investment logic of ARB is very wrong. At that time, I also had FOMO, because the valuations of many public chains were high at that time. I thought that Arbitrum, as a core project in Layer 2, should have a lot of room for growth. In addition, Solana was also hot at the time, so I mistakenly thought that Layer 2 would be the next hot spot. But later I found that this judgment based on superficial consensus and market sentiment is actually very unreliable. What really determines the long-term trend of a project is its actual operation in liquidity arrangement, not how people perceive it.
GMX is also an extreme example. I thought GMX was very attractive in terms of both product innovation and valuation model. Especially in the bear market, its cash flow was scarce in the entire market. At that time, I did think I had found the so-called value trough. But the result was tragic. A good product does not mean that it will definitely grow in the long run. Long-term growth requires strong go-to-market capabilities, as well as continuous operations and iterations.
Although the number of GMX users and transaction volume are now even higher than they were back then, the price of the coin has been falling. I later realized that the product fundamentals were fine, but there were two possible reasons for the poor market performance: one was that its business model could not continue to expand, for example, its funding fee structure was more expensive than Hyperliquid in the eyes of Trader; the other was the problem of the team itself.
Looking back now, I think that the success of a project depends on the team and the founder's determination. The founding team of GMX obviously did not intend to do a long-term project. Their iteration speed and operational capabilities were basically stagnant. They were more like making a one-off product and did not continue to push the project towards a higher goal. Although I have not sold GMX yet, I know very well that this is a typical case of a project stalling due to a lack of subjective initiative of the team.
So these experiences make me more inclined to bet on those truly excellent and ambitious founders and teams. The fundamentals of the project itself are of course important, but the human factor may be more critical.
Summary of investment logic
Christian: I think if I summarize the logic behind my current project selection, it can actually be reduced to three points.
The first point is the team's vision. How big a project can be depends largely on whether the team has the vision and ability to promote it. If the founding team only wants to cash out as soon as possible, then the project is doomed to fail. A team with a big vision can often invest more persistently and make the project bigger and stronger. Of course, whether the project can succeed depends on the team's attitude towards tokens, and whether they realize that the success of token prices can in turn drive user growth and market expansion of the product.
Jeff from Hyperliquid is a typical example. He is not a short-term thinking founder, but he is very smart in using tokens to attract attention and using the price of tokens as a tool for user growth. After they issued the tokens, the fundamentals of the project have made a qualitative leap, which is a very rare phenomenon. Generally, the product comes first and then the tokens, but they use the tokens to drive the popularity of the product, which is a bit like the logic of some exchange platform tokens in the past.
The second point is continuous iteration and market strategy. If the team just wants to stop after issuing coins, the project is basically doomed to fail. It is necessary to continuously polish the product and continue to invest in market operations and marketing to keep the project hot and competitive.
The third point is the concentration of the token structure. In the current market environment, the decentralized token structure is no longer applicable. In the past, people could naturally reach a consensus based on market sentiment, but now the market must artificially create a consensus. Like GMX, its token structure is too decentralized, and it is difficult for the community to form a joint force. Hyperliquid is obviously different. It has achieved a high degree of concentration in the token holding structure. Large households, small investors and institutions can all participate in forming a joint force. This structure is more likely to promote the explosion of market value.
So to sum up, if I seriously invest time in researching and investing in new projects in the future, these three factors — team structure, token structure control, and centralized consensus building — will be my main judgment framework.
Investment mentality advice: Position control and logical belief are better than emotional anxiety
Christian: Regarding investment mentality, I can summarize it in two sentences.
The first sentence is: Never let your position exceed the limit you can bear. The limit here is not just a matter of leverage, but the proportion of your overall investment to your personal assets. My own experience is that it is a relatively comfortable state to control the investment position within 30% to 50% of the total assets. As long as the position is not too large, even if the currency price fluctuates violently, it will not have much impact on my life. Mental breakdown is often not due to market changes, but because you have placed too many bets, so you feel unbearable pressure.
The second sentence is: believe in logic, not emotions or beliefs. Even if the position is not heavy, it is inevitable to doubt yourself and the market when you suffer a big loss. But the most important thing at this time is to repeatedly review the logic of making investment decisions. If you find that the logic itself is wrong, you should stop the loss in time; but if the logic still holds, you must stick to it and not be shaken by short-term market fluctuations. Like when I invested in Coinbase, even though the loss was serious, I believed that its fundamental logic had not changed, so the more it fell, the more I wanted to increase my position.
Simply put, controlling positions is a manifestation of self-discipline, and sticking to logic is the basis of a stable mentality. Investment does not require blind faith, but rational judgment.
