OKX friends Issue 6｜Conversation with Mr. Mai: A hardcore Meme nuggets class, practical tips for Degen players

Guest message:

The process that every crypto investor must go through:

Look at the mountains, they are mountains

Look at the mountain, it’s not a mountain

Look at mountains or mountains

In the beginning, you will only pay attention to the narrative when speculating on currencies. After picking up the wallets of smart money and bankers, you will pay special attention to the operations of the bankers. Finally, when you know the rules of the game, you will go back to the first day and pay special attention to the narrative and financial hot spots. , the consensus of investors.

You have to realize this process on your own. It is extremely painful but you will eventually become enlightened. Come on!

Mr. Mai (@Michael_Liu93) is a senior investor who has crossed over from traditional finance to Web3. After graduating in 2016, he worked in a Canadian investment bank for two years and was engaged in mergers and acquisitions. After coming into contact with blockchain in 2017-2018, I gradually shifted from the traditional VC perspective to cryptocurrency trading. He is currently running a fund focusing on the secondary Bitcoin market and is also a well-known KOL on the Meme currency track. With his in-depth insights into the market and high-quality content sharing, he has accumulated more than 60,000 Twitter fans in just six months.

OKX specially invited him as a guest in the first issue of the 2025 "Friends of OKX" series to share his in-depth thoughts on the Meme track and suggestions for novices. Through the analysis from the dual perspectives of traditional finance and cryptocurrency, we are shown a more three-dimensional market picture.

The " Friends of OKX " series is a special column specially planned by OKX and hosted by OKX official community ambassador Mercy ( @Mercy_okx ). It aims to explore the career stories, industry insights and lessons of KOLs from different backgrounds for novice users to learn and refer to. .

The path to advancement from traditional finance to Web3

Mercy_okx ( @Mercy_okx ): Can you share with everyone your experience in entering the Web3 industry?

Honest Mr. Mai (@Michael_Liu93): I entered the financial industry after graduating in 2016. I first worked in a Canadian investment bank for two years, and then did mergers and acquisitions. My earliest exposure to blockchain was a relatively accidental opportunity. When I was researching the enterprise services space, I participated in a conference call with the Credit Suisse investment research team, and they discussed blockchain technology. I had actually heard of Bitcoin when I was in college, but at that time I was quite skeptical about cryptocurrencies. It was not until 2017-2018 that I came into contact with the application of Ethereum and blockchain in the field of enterprise services, and then I became interested in this field and began to invest in some early public chain projects. But at that time, I was still looking at the blockchain from a traditional VC perspective. It was not until 2020-2021 that I officially switched from the traditional field to cryptocurrency. Now I mainly operate a Bitcoin secondary market fund.

Mercy_okx : From initially working as a VC to focusing on Meme currency trading, what is the logic of this transformation process?

Honest Mr. Mai: I am a person who prefers to chase new opportunities. I will go wherever there is wealth creation effect. Now the market opportunity is obviously at the secondary level. You can either buy Bitcoin and reap the Beta benefits, or participate on the chain. However, I also experienced a period of discomfort when I first entered on-chain transactions. I found that many friends who sent me private messages reported that it was difficult to get started with on-chain transactions, and they lost money as soon as they entered. In fact, I myself suffered losses for half a year in the beginning and was "cut off" by others every day. This is because even if you have stable profitability in the secondary market, you have to be re-educated by the market when you come to the chain. So I suggest that everyone accept this process calmly, because this is a necessary tuition fee.

My previous VC experience is very helpful to me now. In essence, they are all financial markets, and they are all games of human nature. Many of the logics of market making and retail investor shipments are similar.

In-depth insights into the Meme coin market

Mercy_okx : How did you start doing personal IP ? It has grown from a few thousand fans to more than 60,000 fans in a short period of time. What do you think is the most critical factor?

Honest and honest Mr. Mai: I think I’m relatively lucky, and I’ve hit several hot spots well. First of all, I realized very early on that in the Meme field, personal IP and voice volume are very important. Because Meme is essentially a communication game, if you are a super spreader or information center, you can be closer to other information centers. In all financial markets, information gaps are always the most valuable.

When I first made my account, I wanted to develop in the direction of Meme. At the beginning, I mainly shared some secondary market experiences that I am good at, such as writing about how secondary market makers operate, including when some retail investors were pursuing Dog and Hamster on TON. For these projects, I analyzed the market making and operations behind them. Harvesting techniques. These contents aroused a lot of resonance, and the number of followers on the account increased from hundreds to thousands.

Later, I started writing to share my experiences on Meme. Later, Solana exploded quickly, and I caught this wave of prices. Although I caught it relatively late, like Sister Hui and others, they had already played on Solana, but I still caught some good opportunities, such as the earliest $ai16z, $ban, and the current AI concept. I think I caught it right. . I personally am better at finding where the hot money is, because my trading style is to follow the hot money.

Mercy_okx : What do you think of the current development trend of the Meme coin market? In particular, what changes have been brought about by the rise of the AI ​​concept?

Honest Mr. Mai: The dividends on this chain are unstoppable. It is essentially absorbing the liquidity of the secondary market. Why is the liquidity on the chain sucked away by DEX? Behind this is actually a change in business model.

Let me use a metaphor to illustrate: the original model was like this - I had an idea to build a car, I first sought VC financing, and then went to the exchange to sell the car to users in the secondary market. Retail investors in the secondary market are actually consumers, and they exchange USDT for project tokens. When market liquidity is good, if the project party produces a "Porsche", the value may increase when consumers in the secondary market buy it. But when the market liquidity is not good, there are a lot of people building cars, and the initial pricing is very high, people who buy in the secondary market will become trapped consumers instead of investors.

And now the model has become - I have an idea, first raise funds from the market, and then build the product step by step. This is because retail investors have very early opportunities to participate. For example, they can invest when the project is only in the blueprint stage and receive returns after the product is produced. This is actually taking the cake that VC originally had. Just like the original project team required rounds of financing: angel round, A round, and B round, now it has become a direct fair launch. Whether the product is good and whether the market recognizes it is directly reflected in the price.

The rise of the AI ​​concept has brought about great changes, attracting a large amount of institutional funds to enter the market. The valuations of ai16z and Swarms would not be able to reach this scale without institutional funds. Moreover, AI projects have changed the business model on the chain, and they actually have product demonstrations. At each stage, different types of investors will enter the market - in the early stage, it may be Young P who thinks that the market value of 500,000 is suitable for investment. Later, as the team debuts and the product takes shape, more institutional investors will be attracted. This gives each stage a clear buying logic, which is a model that institutional investors like very much.

Mercy_okx : Compared with the traditional primary and secondary markets, what is unique about the Meme coin market?

Honest Mr. Mai: The biggest feature is that "it's easy to reset to zero when you buy it". The gameplay of Meme will be very diverse. In the secondary market, it is essentially a single-player game of wits and courage against the banker. But Meme coin is more like a MORPG, where everyone shows off their own abilities.

For example, as a young P player, you may stare at the board every day to seize internal market opportunities. If you are good at analyzing chips, you may be able to catch the early strong dealer market. You can also be a builder. For example, I recently suggested to a friend in the group who is not good at playing AI to chat with the Hackathon team to see who is ready to issue coins and establish a relationship in advance. After they finish sending out coins and collecting chips, they may Give you some early opportunities.

The key is to discover a money-making angle that suits you. Just like the secondary market, some people play spot and some play contracts, and spot is divided into bands and holdings. Everyone has to find the way that suits them best.

Mercy_okx : What do you think is the most important consideration when evaluating the potential of a Meme coin project?

Honest Mr. Mai: I think the arrival of the AI ​​trend has actually changed the evaluation logic of Meme coins a lot. In the previous Meme era, project parties and market makers were hidden. If you didn’t know the developer or the first-level market maker, it was difficult to judge whether a project was a trading market, a strong banker market, or a conspiracy market. At that time, we could only analyze some clues from the on-chain address, such as looking at how high the plate that a certain project party had done before could reach.

With the AI ​​wave, evaluation has become closer to the VC methodology. Because most of them are well-known teams, you can do real due diligence -contact community members directly, research the team background, and write this information in their personal profiles.

When evaluating projects, I mainly look at three aspects:

1. Narrative potential: whether the product is in line with current market hot spots;
2. Team strength: not only depends on their professional capabilities in the AI ​​field, but also their operational capabilities in Web3, including disk control, marketing and community operations;
3. Market space: For example, a certain AI framework has reached a valuation of 2 billion. If a new team with a strong technical background emerges to pursue a similar direction, this will be an opportunity for market replication.

This is actually very similar to the logic of traditional VC investment in early-stage projects. Just like ZhenFund is known for "investing in people", in the early stages of a project there may not be much to see except the founders. But no matter what stage of participation, the most important thing is to look at the people, because how big a project can be depends not only on the product itself, but also on the team's ability to create market sentiment, operate the project, and continuously deliver. Especially in the AI ​​track, we need to find a team that understands both the product and the gameplay of Web3, so that such a project is most likely to succeed.

Mercy_okx : AI- related tokens now have many subdivided tracks, including computing power, infrastructure, pure Meme , Agent technology framework, Launchpad platform, etc. How do you weigh product logic, narrative, and market sentiment when evaluating different types of projects? Are there different evaluation criteria for different categories?

Honest Mr. Mai: I will use an example of a framework project to illustrate. This round of so-called framework projects can be understood as benchmarking public chains, and there will be various applications on them, such as TradeFi or games. Why is the market so excited about $Virtual and $ai16z? Because they are building the underlying framework, the market gives them a valuation similar to that of a public chain.

In the AI ​​application track, we believe that the most valuable thing 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 cut into liquidity. If you can get a commission from the transaction, this product will be very valuable.
2. Frequency of user interaction: In the cryptocurrency space, the most common activity performed by users is trading. Therefore, the AI ​​application with the highest interaction frequency is likely to be in the direction of TradeFi+AI.

Practice has also proved this. For example, the market value of projects such as Stoic and Berg has rapidly increased from 2 to 3 million US dollars to tens of millions in two weeks. This is because the market replicates the logic of success.

In contrast, projects that are purely conceptual, purely storytelling or purely Meme, 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 just a concept to make money. The market pays more attention to product implementation and feasible business models.

As for infrastructure projects like $swarms, they can achieve high valuations because they are similar to public chains and can capture all transaction liquidity within the ecosystem. This is why the price of $Virtual should be higher than $ai16z, because it not only provides a technical framework, but also touches on actual liquidity. In the future, $ai16z is likely to develop in the direction of liquidity, because in Web3, the real moat is not only technology, but also the possession of liquidity.

This is different from Web2's AI competition. Web2's AI is more like an arms race, competing for 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 ecology on different public chains ?

Honest Mr. Mai: Both retail investors and project developers have their own characteristics. Let’s talk about Solana first. It’s very fast-paced. Retail investors may lose their coins after a short sleep, and project developers may also lose their coins after a short sleep. It is difficult to maintain a market value of 5-10M on Solana relying on natural traffic, which leaves very little room for error for the project side.

There are a lot of rug disks and startups on BSC, but if you meet good developers and teams, the space will be larger. However, because there is little natural traffic, you basically have to rely on your own efforts, so projects that can be successful on BSC generally have strong financial backing behind them.

Base is characterized by close ties between the official and project parties and strong support. For example, Jess (Base Ecosystem Leader) often helps project parties make calls. Moreover, there are many technical teams on Base and they are making some good products. As a retail investor, the best thing about Base is that the number of projects is relatively small, so there is less pressure to choose, and you can focus on projects with official endorsement, which is relatively safer.

Newbie Admission Guide

Mercy_okx : For newcomers who have just entered the market, how do you recommend allocating funds reasonably and building a sustainable investment system?

Honest Mr. Mai: The first suggestion is not to buy VC coins at the second level. If you don’t know how to trade, it is recommended to configure Bitcoin as a currency hoarder. Mainstream coins such as Solana and Ethereum should also be configured appropriately. If you want to speculate in Meme, it is recommended to buy blue-chip Meme coins that have been verified in the secondary market, such as Doge and Pepe.

Regarding capital allocation, I recommend that novices who want to participate in on-chain transactions only use 10% of the total funds to participate. For example, if you have 100,000, use 10,000 to play on the chain. You may invest one or two hundred dollars in each currency to start trying. Never stud. The best way is to be an observer first, and then gradually expand the size of your funds after you can continue to generate profits in this market.

Before finding a stable profit method, it is recommended not to pursue internal gains. I have seen many friends crazily "buying the dip" in the internal market, but they often get harvested. It is recommended to start observing projects with a market value of 5-10M, and invest 0.05-0.1 ETH each time to try. Wait until you find that you are generally making money on Meme, then expand your position. This is not a gambling game. If you play it as a gambling game, you will definitely lose miserably.

Mercy_okx : How to build information acquisition channels?

Honest Mr. Mai: The most important thing is not to pay attention to the matrix number. Pay attention to a few big KOLs in the industry who won’t deceive others. Pay special attention to the KOL's first recommendation (Call), rather than subsequent recommendations, because the market changes too fast, and the odds of subsequent calls may be different.

In addition, find a group of friends you trust and have complementary abilities to communicate with. In this market, teamwork is often more successful than working alone. Each may have their own strengths, and complementing each other can go further.

Suggestions and prospects for OKX

Mercy_okx: What is your overall impression of OKX?

Honest Mr. Mai: OKX’s team is very cutting-edge and interacts very closely with the community. Colleagues including the product team and KOL operations are very close to the market. It has also done relatively well in terms of on-chain tools and wallets. It has provided free services from the beginning, showing a good strategic vision. Faced with this wave of on-chain market transformation, it has also made rapid changes, which is considered far-sighted among all exchanges. I can't evaluate the response speed to the problem because I haven't encountered the relevant situation yet. But overall, OKX is very serious about serving users.

This article is for reference only. This article only represents the author's views and does not represent OKX's position. 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 a high degree of risk and may fluctuate significantly. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. Please consult your legal/tax/investment professional regarding your specific situation. Please be responsible for understanding and complying with applicable local laws and regulations.