Original title: Ansems Secret To Getting 10x Richer In Crypto NOW
Guest: Ansem, a well-known trader
Original translation: Zhouzhou, Ismay, BlockBeats
Editors Note: In this podcast, well-known trader Ansem explains why he was bearish on the market some time ago, and shares how he discovered and is optimistic about Solana and Solanas trading strategies and his views on the current status and future of memecoin. He also discusses the NFT market. In addition, Ansem offers unique insights into the decline of crypto celebrities, crypto investment opportunities, and the relationship between cryptocurrencies and sports betting, and explores in depth the future trends of the crypto industry.
In this podcast, Threadguy and Ansem ask and explore several core questions:
1. Which round of the cycle are we in now? Are we still in a bull market?
2. You publicly expressed your bearish view on the market not long ago. What is your logic and what are your main positions now?
3. How do you think SocialFi will develop in the future? Did Pump.fun kill the meme coin? Will there be a meme coin that surpasses Doges historical high in this cycle?
4. Is it a wise choice to focus on meme coin trading? How to take root in the bear market, lock in Solana and have firm faith?
5. Discuss the Neiro incident and your thoughts on celebrities’ involvement in cryptocurrency?
TL;DR
Current Cycle Discussion: Ansem believes that the current cycle is in the early stages of the second or third inning, and believes that cryptocurrency adoption will increase and unprecedented new things will emerge.
Why was the market bearish some time ago: The market did not fluctuate much after the probability of Ethereum ETF approval soared.
How to view the poor performance of L2 tokens: Ansem believes that if you want a blockchain that is more efficient than Ethereum L1, you should no longer use EVM, and that people underestimate the trend of shifting from CEX to DEX.
How will SocialFi develop next: meme coin is the original form of SocialFi. Meme coin is not dead, and I believe its super cycle will continue.
Why bet on Solana: Ansem has been paying attention to the Solana ecosystem for a long time and understands its entire development process, which is characterized by being cheaper and faster.
Ansem recalled his experience in the Neiro incident: sharing how to deal with the spread of false information on social media and the ensuing protagonist effect. He also reflected on his responsibilities as a public figure in the field of cryptocurrency, especially the pressure and challenges he faced when sharing investment opportunities.
How traders should adjust their mindset and turn things around: Newbies should learn to be the first participant in every opportunity.
The following is the original text of the conversation (the original content has been deleted and reorganized for easier reading and understanding):
Cycle discussion, looking forward to the outbreak of new things
Threadguy : What’s your mindset like lately?
Ansem: I feel great. This is probably my third cycle. Things are going very smoothly in terms of trading, and my followers have grown from 100,000 in December last year to almost 500,000 now.
Threadguy: Do you think your follower count reflects how many new people are joining the scene?
Ansem: I think so. I gained about 400,000 in the first six months, and then at a certain stage, the weekly growth began to slow down. When it started to slow down in March and April, I thought it might be due to the market concentration, but it has started to pick up a bit recently, which is indeed a good indicator of the retail market. Looking back at the last cycle, the growth of some big fans was also exaggerated. When their growth stagnated, you knew that it seemed that not many people were entering the market.
Threadguy: What inning of this cycle do you think we are in? Are we still in a bull market?
Ansem: I think it is the second or third round, and it is still in a very early stage. The reason for this is that not many major events have happened yet. In previous cycles, we experienced a rotation of various altcoins, but now we don’t see a broad rise in various fields. Although Solana and some meme coins are performing very crazy, there are some moves in the AI field, but there is almost no movement in DeFi, and L2 has not changed much.
The public awareness phase of this cycle will be different, and now many mainstream institutions are promoting cryptocurrencies and emphasizing the future of cryptocurrencies. With the passive inflows of these ETFs, I think the market attention will be more stable.
Threadguy: How do you think cryptocurrency adoption will change this time around?
Ansem: The market value of gold is about $13 trillion, while Bitcoin is only about $1.2 trillion now. The contrast between Bitcoin and gold is quite strong. Stocks have been rising because funds need to find places to invest, and this will also happen in the cryptocurrency field.
Gold price performance against Bitcoin over the past 15 years, source: Woobull
Threadguy: Do you have any investments other than cryptocurrencies right now?
Ansem: I have done some diversification, recently bought some Galaxy stock, and also have some Robinhood and Coinbase stock, but I havent diversified my investments too much beyond cryptocurrencies.
Threadguy: What do you think of the 2024 cycle?
Ansem: My thoughts have changed many times. The rebound at the beginning of the year was very strong, almost a V-shaped rebound, but not all altcoins hit new highs. I think it may have to wait until later in 2024 before there will be a bigger market.
What Im really interested in is whether there will be something like NFT and DeFi that suddenly explodes in this cycle. Because every time something like this appears, no one can foresee it. Although meme coins have performed strongly this time, we have seen this happen with Dogecoin and Shib before.
Threadguy: Do you think that unknowns like DeFi and NFTs have to change every cycle?
Ansem: I don’t think it has to change every cycle, but there will always be some new things that have never been seen before that will rise wildly. Because there is nothing to refer to, no historical data to compare, its rising potential is unknown. There are many DeFi protocols that do have good income, with stable teams and financial support behind them, but their performance is not so outstanding. If you look back at 2019 to 2020, Aave rose about 2,000 times at the time, and that was the first time everyone saw something like this.
Why are we bearish on the market?
Threadguy: Not long ago you were publicly bearish on the market at a good time. What was your logic and how do you feel about risk now?
Ansem tweeted that he lost about $250,000 in the last month, which is a quarter of his assets, and he is seriously considering cashing out and leaving the cryptocurrency market forever. Ansem admitted that he has completely lost his advantage in the current market, feels lost, and has made a series of wrong decisions due to his recent trading level (Trading like dog shit).
Ansem: I turned bearish after the probability of Ethereum ETF approval soared from 20% to 80%. When the probability was only 20%, the price of ETH was around $3,200 or $3,300. When the probability of approval soared to 80%, market sentiment suddenly became optimistic, and ETH immediately rose from $3,300 to $3,900, close to the annual high.
I was getting really bullish and thinking everything was going to hit new highs, Bitcoin was going to $75,000, Ethereum was going to $4,000 or $4,500, I thought the whole market, including the meme coins, was going to hit new highs. But that week there wasn’t much movement, and the next week the market was just consolidating and hovering around the highs.
I thought, its impossible, there are so many good news, the regulatory environment is improving, presidential candidates are discussing cryptocurrencies, institutions are vigorously promoting Bitcoin ETFs, and liquidity is sufficient. But the market has never been able to break through the highs, and then I started to be bearish. I think it is possible that Bitcoin and Ethereum will continue to consolidate, while meme coins will continue to rise.
My strategy at the time was to keep most of SOL and meme coins, and then short some ETH to see what happened next. But meme coins rose a little and then fell back, and I thought, no, it seems that the whole market will fall. After all, we had not seen a big correction at that time. Bitcoin only pulled back 15% to 20% at most, and there was no big pullback of 30% or 40%.
I wrote a long post telling everyone that we were close to the top of the range, and you could choose to sell some and buy back at the bottom of the range, or hedge the risk through other means. If you do nothing, your portfolio may shrink by 40% when the market corrects, and then you will be in a dilemma of not wanting to sell at support. I diversified some of my risk around the beginning of June, and I bought some assets when the market corrected, and then shorted them, and repeated the operation. Now I am not taking risks, but more waiting. I am still very optimistic about the end of the year and the end of 2025, and patience is the key at present.
Related reading: From the top meme KOL to speechless, Ansem: Why doesn’t it work anymore?
Threadguy: What are your main holdings right now?
Ansem： I would be bullish on Solana relative to other currencies. If I am bullish on the trading pair of Solana and Ethereum, I can hold SOL spot and short Ethereum at the same time to maintain the ratio of long positions. My current position is neutral. In addition to Solana, I also have some Helium and meme coins.
The SOL/ETH exchange rate has maintained a strong upward trend since the end of last year
Threadguy: Are you Ethereum’s “Public Enemy No. 1”?
Ansem: They really don’t like me. When I pushed this idea last year, everyone thought it was impossible. Now, the market value of SOL has reached a new high.
Which narratives do you like?
Threadguy: If we’re in the second or third phase of a bull market right now, what important narratives do you feel have yet to materialize?
Ansem: There are several big narratives that have not yet been fully developed. One of them is that L2 tokens, which are not particularly concerned about now, have performed very poorly this year, and the market sentiment of Ethereum is now slowly turning negative. I think L2 based on EVM is actually not very meaningful. If you want to build a blockchain that is more efficient than Ethereum L1, you should not use EVM anymore, but other virtual machines, so that Rollup can handle more transactions and the fees are lower, so I think those non-EVM L2 will be more promising.
I also think DePIN is undervalued, which is why I hold Helium. The use cases for this type of network make perfect sense to outsiders, leveraging resources from different regions and using incentives to make them work together can significantly reduce costs.
Another point is that people underestimate the trend of shifting from CEX to DEX. If you look at the ratio of on-chain transactions to CEX, the difference in this cycle is very large, and many teams are paying attention to this area, not only doing automatic market makers, but also including on-chain perpetual contract trading, etc. This is because we now have a good enough infrastructure to compete with CEX like Binance.
Meme coin is the original form of SocialFi
Threadguy: What’s next for SocialFi?
Ansem: I also really like SocialFi. Meme coins are the original form of SocialFi. It shows peoples enthusiasm for community buying and selling. You compete or collaborate with others in a group. Plus now that everyone wants to issue their own tokens, there will definitely be a social application that seizes the opportunity to financialize anything that goes viral. Pump.fun may be that application, but there will definitely be applications that continue to take advantage of this trend.
While some people have some issues with these SocialFi apps making too much money from the Solana ecosystem, this will always change. In the crypto world, if a platform makes a lot of money and finds a clear product-market fit, and the community thinks they are taking too much, there will always be competitors or existing teams will adjust their strategies to make the user experience better. This is how the crypto world works. It is too easy to copy a product or build a new product in a similar way. This kind of competition will always happen, and the end result is to move in the most efficient direction.
Threadguy: Do you think Pump.fun “killed” the meme coin?
Ansem: I don’t think Pump.fun “killed” meme coins, meme coins are not dead, and I still believe that the super cycle of meme coins will continue, and they will continue to be a good risk exposure for all these L1 and L2. But I think what people don’t realize is how fast the rise of meme coins is, and there is always a cool-down period after that, and the market will go sideways, and either the price will go straight down, or the price will rush up and then go sideways and rise again. Now I believe in this super cycle more than before.
The reason I thought BONK would do well in the beginning was because Bonk was the only exposure token on Solana at the time, and there were almost no other altcoins on Solana at the time. I always said that if you use DeFi on the Solana ecosystem, you will eventually be rewarded because no one was using these protocols at the time, such as Jupiter, Jito, and other protocols, which were all undervalued. At that time, the price of Solana had just broken through $30, and it had been there for almost a year. When it broke through, I knew that people would start to move to Solana, and once they got to Solana, they would buy BONK.
Meme coins as an exposure to Solana is not a crazy idea. Since then, my view on the meme coin super cycle has become more solid because they have outperformed other altcoins by a large margin, but this is not to say that they cant fall. Any coin that rises 100x or even 1,000x will fall back. This is the norm in cryptocurrencies.
Threadguy: Do you think there will be a meme coin that will surpass Doges all-time high in this cycle?
Ansem: If the total cryptocurrency market value reaches $10 trillion in this cycle, I think it is possible. When the market value of these coins is close to the level of Ethereum, some very exaggerated situations will indeed occur.
Threadguy: Although DOGE is a veteran currency, it seems to be a bit outdated now. Do you know anyone who is actively discussing Doge?
Ansem: There really is no one left. The influence of old meme coins has declined a lot compared to new meme coins. There are a lot of old money in the cryptocurrency market, which usually drives the volatility of Doge, but you see Elon Musk posted a meme about Doge two days ago, and the price of Doge coin didnt move at all. Its like Bitcoin and Ethereum had good news but no movement. If a major event should have caused volatility but did not cause any reaction, it means that the market sentiment is not good anymore.
Threadguy: What do you think of those old players who have become extremely bearish just because of the crazy rise of meme coins?
Ansem: I think their point of view is reasonable. In the past, when meme coins and small altcoins skyrocketed, it meant that the market was close to the top, but this cycle is a little different. Apart from meme coins, no other sectors have performed particularly crazy. So I think we are still in the early stages of the cycle. In addition, Bitcoin and Ethereum have not yet broken through their historical highs. If they have reached the top now, it would be outrageous.
Threadguy: What impact does Pump.fun have on the meme coin space?
Ansem: It definitely dilutes those low-market-cap meme coins. When the Solana ecosystem first became popular, some coins could maintain a market value of $1 million for days or even weeks, but this almost never happens anymore.
Threadguy: How to find the next WIF in this meme coin craze?
Ansem: I usually look at coins with a market cap of $5 million to $10 million, and I also look for unique meme coins. If the theme of a coin is a specific animal, its market cap ceiling is usually the highest market cap of similar coins on the current market. If you find a new theme that is different from existing coins and a community is formed around it, then there may be a crazy rise.
Threadguy: Will funds shift away from meme coins and toward infrastructure-type, more real-valued coins?
Ansem: I personally still think that meme coins will have another wave of growth. But think about it, if the market value of meme reaches 30 billion or 40 billion, and multiple meme coins reach this level, will they really rise to one trillion? In that case, Im not sure what percentage of the entire crypto market meme accounts for, but I think once they account for a large enough proportion, it may be time to start considering reducing risks and turning to other areas.
Threadguy: What is the best way to issue coins in 2024?
Ansem: Its great on platforms like Pump.fun, but the key is not to issue tokens at a very low market cap. Because once the market cap is too low, there will always be people taking advantage of insider trading, leading to a large sell-off on the first day. If you have enough influence, the token should be issued at a higher market cap. Ideally, even if they do decide to issue tokens, I dont think they necessarily have to circulate them immediately, but should lock the supply for a period of time. This will at least ensure that they will put more effort into the project instead of just focusing on the performance of the first day or first week.
Threadguy: With the recent crypto recession, people are turning their attention to sports gambling. What do you think about cryptocurrencies, sports gambling, and the future of gambling?
Ansem: I think meme coins are a bit like sports betting. When you buy ultra-low market cap coins, the hit rate is a bit like when you play a five-times bet. Most of the time you wont win. But the difference with meme coins is that although the hit rate is also low, the return rate is much higher. With sports betting, unless you bet on a compound bet with odds of dozens of times, it is impossible to achieve such a return.
Threadguy: Will meme coins replace low-end sports betting?
Ansem: I wouldnt say replace, but I think they will become just as common and people will bet on low-cap coins in the crypto space just like they bet on sportsbooks.
How did you discover the Solana opportunity?
Threadguy: If you haven’t made 10 million yet, or even a million, is it wise to focus on meme coin trading, or should you focus on other things now?
Ansem: I wouldn’t recommend going all-in on meme coins. For a crypto newbie, the best portfolio should be 70% in “safe” assets, which for me is Solana, but it could also be Bitcoin, Ethereum, Coinbase stock, which are relatively safe investments in the crypto space.
I also think that there are great opportunities to pay attention to altcoins that have fallen sharply from their highs or newly launched altcoins that have not received much attention. Because now all the attention is on meme coins, almost no one is paying attention to other areas. If you can do enough research in other areas and find those altcoins with potential, it is also a good direction.
This was what happened with my Solana trade last year, everyone thought Solana was done after the FTX incident, but a few people seized the opportunity and it ended up being one of the best trades in this cycle.
And there will always be opportunities like Solana because a lot of people don’t do their own research and rely too much on what the market is doing and what everyone is talking about. When a certain area gets a lot of attention, the price will go up quickly and people will move fast. But if you can find these opportunities before they really explode, that’s when you can make a hundred times the return.
Threadguy: Is Solana your most profitable trade ever? How did you find this opportunity and feel so confident about it? If you were to repeat this trade in this market cycle, what would you focus on?
Ansem: Yes, it is actually a combination of many aspects. I am lucky to have been able to follow the Solana ecosystem for a long time and understand its entire development process. I bought SOL when it was only $1.5. In early January 2021, I saw that Ethereum and DeFi on Ethereum were doing well. I thought that if the crypto market was to become larger, there would definitely be multiple L1s that would succeed, especially at the time when Ethereum had begun to have congestion and high fees, and Solanas narrative was cheaper and faster.
I was involved in a lot of things about Solana at the time, witnessed the growth of the entire ecosystem, saw the troubles it encountered, followed all of Solanas early technical upgrades, and attended the 2022 Breakpoint conference. At the conference, I talked to many developers and members of the Solana community. Everyone was discussing the progress they had made behind the scenes during the year, and although some of Solanas early projects did not perform well, the team was still working hard.
At the end of 2022, the public perception of Solana was very negative, and everyone thought Solana was often down, but at the Breakpoint conference, I saw the exact opposite of the outside world. I still remember that they announced a partnership with Google Cloud, and the price of Solana increased to $39. I attended the last party of Breakpoint at that time, and everything felt good, so I decided to go all in, thinking it was a good opportunity for the next market cycle.
The atmosphere at the Solana Breakpoint event in May 2023. Image source: Solana Foundation
Later, FTX crashed. I remember I was still in the club at the time and someone told me that I needed to withdraw funds from FTX. I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. After I got off the plane, I realized that the situation was getting worse. Then someone told me that CZ had just bought FTX. SOL fell from $20 to $8.
After Breakpoint and the FTX crash, I knew that if we had another bull run, the developers who stayed on the chain and continued to build would definitely push the chain forward, and eventually the negative impact caused by SBF would pass. I thought to myself that if Solana was going to rebound, now was the best time to buy it, but I hadnt bought it yet. I was waiting and felt that it might fall to $2 or even lower. I waited until the price returned to around $15 to $20 before I started buying. Around May 2023, I began to express my bullishness on Solana more publicly.
Threadguy: What’s the next crypto trend that’s exciting you right now?
Ansem: I think things like meme coins and Pump.fun trading are like a mini-game, its not a full game, but its the kind of mini-game where you guess which coin will explode and then quickly enter the liquidity pool. I think in the crypto space, you can be more creative with this kind of mini-game, and Solana is a great platform to implement these ideas. Because Solana can handle a lot of transactions, its very cheap, and users can easily make a lot of micro-transactions.
Small games like Flappy Bird are popular on iPhone and Android, and players just want to get high scores, with no monetary incentive at all. But in the crypto space, we can create similar small games on the chain and add financial elements. Coupled with the participation of the community, everyone is competing with each other on the chain. I think there are a lot of creative ideas that can be realized in this space, and no one has really touched this field yet.
Threadguy: So you think of Pump.fun as just one of the millions of apps in the app store right?
Ansem: Yes, for me, Pump.fun is one of the clearest examples of Solana product-market fit, and they make more money every day than Solana itself, and they can do that because Solana can easily handle a lot of on-chain transactions, and the transaction fees are very low. There can be many applications like Pump.fun, because Solana is designed in a way that supports this parallel processing. Even if there are high fees in one area of Solana, it will not affect the operation of applications in other places, and its parallel processing allows many different applications to exist at the same time.
The cumulative revenue of the Pump.fun protocol has reached nearly $100 million. Data source: DeFiLlama
Threadguy: In the early days of the iPhone, there was a gold rush for developers, with everyone rushing to develop apps and get them on the App Store. Do you think we’ll see a similar gold rush on high-performance chains like Solana or Monad?
Ansem: I think so. There is a big difference between crypto applications and applications in app stores. Although some applications also have financial elements, applications in the crypto field are more likely to be financialized.
Threadguy: It’s true that traditional apps are difficult to monetize. You either charge a 99-cent download fee or make money through microtransactions like Clash of Clans, but it’s difficult to make profits on a large scale.
Ansem: In theory, the profit margins for applications on blockchain should be much better, especially running on these high-performance chains, so I feel like this is really a completely open design space that is not yet fully explored.
Neiro incident
Threadguy: Let’s talk about the Neiro incident. How did it happen?
Ansem: I was on vacation with my family and saw everyone on Twitter talking about Neiro. I was confused about what was going on, so I asked everyone which Neiro coin was the right one. Someone sent it to me (lowercase Neiro), and I thought that was the right one, so I shared it. Then someone told me it was a scam and invited me to participate in a Space. I joined the discussion and told everyone in it that you can buy any coin you want, because I don’t want to endorse any particular coin, because I’m afraid that supporting a certain one will make people unhappy. Although I emphasized this many times in the discussion space, it obviously didn’t work.
Related reading: Review of Memes new coin Neiro: market value of nearly 50 million US dollars in two days, with the entry of the order master Ansem to boost it
Threadguy: Do you think you “killed” Neiro yourself?
Ansem: I probably would have done it, but I know that this would have been the same outcome if I hadnt done anything.
Threadguy: This feels like some kind of Cabal Coin with a crazy narrative, the second Dogecoin or something, but you, a cat coin Pups, which was launched as a joke, has a higher market cap.
Ansem: This is one of the things I mentioned in my tweet. The second coin reached a certain height, I remember it was 800 million or 9.8 billion, but my cat coin suddenly rose to a market value of 10 billion.
Threadguy: This protagonist phenomenon is interesting. Its an awkward position, and you cant act like a victim. But there are only three possible outcomes when you are a protagonist: one, you start something, it becomes a unicorn, and it succeeds; two, you collapse in the spotlight and are completely destroyed; three, you disappear.
Ansem: Not many people have had this experience, to get so much attention in a short period of time, with so many eyes on you, and you have no control over the stories that people make up. For example, when Iggy’s incident happened, I stood up to express my support, and a week later someone released an AI fake video of me and her chatting on the street.
Someone at a party told me that he had met my friend Drew, but I had no idea who Drew was. He also said that he talked to Drew for an hour, and Drew kept making up all kinds of stories, saying that Ansem was going to work with me on this project, and he was helping my company do this and that, and this person actually believed Drew. I was just wondering, how many times has this happened?
Threadguy: Was Arthur Hayes interaction with the Pups planned in advance?
Ansem: I swear no, I was surprised he messaged me at the time, we did talk before but we didnt plan anything together.
Celebrity Coin Chaos, It’s Really Hard to Be a KOL
Threadguy: What do you think of celebrity coin offerings in this cycle?
Ansem: When I first saw celebrities joining the crypto world, I thought it made sense. Meme coins were exploding, and I already had ideas about social tokens. These celebrities have a large number of fans. If they join cryptocurrencies, they should be able to make a lot of money, and their fan base will also be incentivized to interact with these artists and celebrities.
I was also very active in tweeting about these things. The first celebrity was Iggy. I remember she announced her CA, which was worth about $10 million. I tried to buy it, but the first transaction failed. I didnt even realize it at the time. It took a long time to find out. Later, the price came down and I bought it again.
Then she tweeted me asking what she should do with the supply, should she burn some of it, and we chatted on Space, and I suggested she burn some of the supply. We talked about celebrities joining crypto, her thoughts on crypto, and her plans. That’s when I learned that she told us that someone was maliciously operating these coins, talking to people, and then trying to launch these coins under her name. She said, “No, I’m going to do this myself.”
Iggy talks about her meme coin MOTHER on a podcast. Image source: Zach Song Show
The other one was Caitlyn Jenner, I wasnt really involved in that project, I just asked a lot of questions on Space.
Then there was DeVito, who really hurt me. I was very positive because he was a super influential artist, and I knew that if he was active on these crypto apps, it would bring a lot of new users, and if he got his entire community into crypto, that would be even more powerful.
So I signed him up and co-hosted a Space with them, and someone said they were selling coins from the developer wallet right now. I was stunned at the time, I was still talking to him, and this happened. Then I said to them on Space: If you start selling on the first day of the token launch, people will not trust you. A lot of people on the team dont know much about cryptocurrencies, but they know that they can make money quickly in the crypto field.
Threadguy: If a celebrity enters crypto just to risk their brand by issuing a meme coin without actually investing any capital, then they are probably just doing it to make a quick buck.
Ansem: I agree, it bothers me that as long as you have a little bit of connection or interaction with something, whether you actually participated or not, everyone will regard it as your stamp of approval.
Even if you think that celebrities, social tokens, and social economy have potential, you shouldn’t be the one who rushes to issue tokens just to make a quick $300,000. So this is where I was wrong. I thought that these people had such a big influence outside the crypto space that it was impossible for them to just start a project and run away. But it turns out that the result is the same every time.
NFTs won’t die, but Ordinals are losing money
Threadguy: Is NFT over?
Ansem: I dont think NFTs are dead, they will rise again with the rise of GameFi. Many long-term games will be combined with NFTs, which are either used in-game or provide additional rewards to holders. Meme coins have performed strongly in this cycle, and I think they have similarities with NFTs, especially in community interaction and gamification experience, such as the strategic sense of early buying. I believe that someone will find a way to combine gamification and NFTs in the future. In fact, there may already be teams trying to do this.
Threadguy: What do you think about Ordinals and Bitcoin?
Ansem: I lost a lot of money on Ordinals. I participated in some projects and ended up getting stuck.
Regarding the Bitcoin ecosystem, my view is that the Bitcoin market is very large, and Bitcoin DeFi and other ecosystems will perform well because many Bitcoin holders have a lot of cash in their hands. Those old Bitcoin whales, who hold Bitcoin, may use DeFi or Ordinals and the like. This was my initial idea, but I am not sure now whether this can attract new markets. Because many old Bitcoin whales have actually participated in various projects on Ethereum and Solana. So the key to the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem is whether it can attract Bitcoin holders who never do any operations on the chain.
Threadguy: Have you ever thought about putting all your money into Bitcoin and not touching it for 2 years?
Ansem: I have indeed thought about it. Sometimes I think about telling everyone to sell other assets and put all the money into Bitcoin cold wallets.
Quick Questions and Answers
Threadguy: What do you think about the state of angel investing in crypto in 2024?
Ansem: I think the angel investment situation is pretty good now. I didnt invest in any of the last cycle, but I heard that a lot of investment in the last cycle was in the infrastructure sector. I think the opportunity for infrastructure projects to be valued at $10 billion is basically over, unless you can prove that it is worth that price.
In the last cycle, if you invested in an L2 project at a super low price, you almost certainly knew it would go up in price because someone would always find it. But in applications, investing is much harder. You need to know if the founder is good and if the application has prospects, and this thought process is more complicated for people. But if you can get access to such deals, you may do well because this is the area most likely to explode in this cycle.
Threadguy: A few months ago there was a popular saying that the only way to make money was to participate in those secret deal flows. Do you think you can still make money without participating in angel investments this cycle?
Ansem: I think it is definitely possible, especially now that this idea has become a consensus. Many people are now unwilling to invest in infrastructure projects with high valuations, and when these projects go public, the valuations will be lower. If there are teams building an ecosystem, while the valuations are lowered, some products will explode, and you can buy them at a price lower than when they were first issued.
Threadguy: Under what circumstances do you think a new chain will surpass Solana?
Ansem: I think time is the biggest factor. Even if there is a powerful L1 chain like Solana launched now, which can build the same applications as Solana, it still requires the developer community, users and traders to be active on the chain.
One thing Ive been thinking about during this cycle is that I think Solana will perform better than people expect, and in fact its already happening. And once it does well, there will be a lot of projects launching later in the cycle, and a lot of new projects that havent launched yet. If Solana goes to $1,000 or even higher, and new projects are launched at one-tenth of its valuation, there will be a lot of people who want to lock in that profit and look for new investment opportunities.
In the last cycle, all projects were launched almost at the same time, and I could quickly rotate between Solana, Luna, Avalanche, etc. But this cycle is different. Solana may explode first, and then Monad or other L2 chains may explode. These new projects will not appear at the same time.
Threadguy: Do you really think Solana can go to $1,000?
Ansem: I really think so.
Threadguy: So how high do you think Bitcoin will rise?
Ansem: I think about $250,000.
Threadguy: Is it time to readjust, reset your mindset, change your perspective, and embrace the mid- to late-stage?
Ansem: I think so, especially if you feel like youve been underperforming. Were in a sideways phase right now, with no major moves for a few months, most altcoins peaked in March, and even Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana havent hit new highs in five months. I do think its a good time to rethink.
Threadguy: If you were starting from scratch and had nothing but cash, how would you configure it in the crypto space?
Ansem: Don’t consider things like “it has increased 7 times or 10 times”, but start from scratch and consider how to allocate assets according to the current market environment.
Threadguy: By the way, what was it like when Vitalik retweeted you?
Ansem: I have never met him or talked to him. I was really shocked when he retweeted it. I thought, it’s impossible, why would Vitalik follow me? He never gets involved in anything.
Threadguy: If you are a new trader, is now a good time to learn leverage trading?
Ansem: If you have a little money, of course.
Threadguy: You mentioned before that you turned $3,000 into $100,000. Was that done through leveraged trading?
Ansem: Actually I made most of my money through contract trading, and I also made a lot on Luna, which went up about 10 times at that time.
Threadguy: Do you think good on-chain traders should switch to contract trading?
Ansem: No, I don’t think so. If you want to survive in this field for a long time, you have to be good at both. Spot trading is definitely better than the other, but being able to manage risk is also very important.
Threadguy: What are the best and worst trades you’ve ever made?
Ansem: The best is Solana, I made a lot of money on Solana in this cycle. The worst is the short trade of Luna, I lost a lot of money on that.
Threadguy: Which coin do you think will “die” in this cycle?
Ansem: Probably Cardano, because there are many strong L1 chains with good communities and technologies, and Cardano has not kept up.
Threadguy: Which coin do you think is the most undervalued?
Ansem: I think it is MetaPlex. People may only regard it as an NFT platform, but it has many application standards in the entire ecosystem. In addition, the team is also very stable and has been operating on Solana for a while. They may be doing a token buyback. This is a very underestimated project.
Another one is Kamino, which is also a good project that everyone has been talking about recently. If Solana continues to rise, people will continue to use its DeFi applications. Although most of the funds are currently concentrated in meme coins, Solanas DeFi field has not really exploded.
Threadguy: Do you feel like you’re a hero or a villain in this cycle?
Ansem: I think its probably 50-50 right now, and Ill be the hero in the end. But the problem is that theres a big gap between what people think and what I actually do.
Threadguy: What advice do you have for young crypto players on how to turn around in this cycle?
Ansem: Just like my previous example, if you want to go from zero to 1,000x or 10,000x, you must be the first participant in every opportunity. If you are always the first to arrive, you will eventually catch a big opportunity. In addition, it is important to stay active and find a small group of like-minded people to do research together. They will see things that you have not noticed. Finally, do not rely solely on information on CT, which is usually lagging behind.
Be active in the community of the project, join Discord groups, various chat groups, and even reach out to people you don’t know but want to communicate with. This is what I did in my first cycle, trying to communicate with as many people as possible. At that time, no one knew who I was, so I interacted with people on Twitter and posted comments. To be honest, such interactions will bring you many opportunities.
Threadguy: You were one of the first participants in almost every new project in the last cycle. How do you balance personal and work when you are in the midst of a bull market?
Ansem: It is indeed impossible. The hardest thing for me in the last cycle was staring at charts all day and hardly living in the real world. This is also one of the reasons why I lost money in 2022. Even if you are very active in the crypto field, you need to maintain some real relationships.
