Author: BitpushNews
After resigning from the Internet giant Meta, Justin has devoted himself to the crypto field full-time. As an entrepreneur and Crypto Degen (enthusiast), he has not only successfully bet on popular targets such as PEPE, Degen, and TRUMP, accumulated rich results, but also learned valuable lessons from repeated market fluctuations.
In this exclusive interview with Bitpush, Justin shared his story from Meta to Crypto, and discussed in depth the investment strategy, market status and future trends of Meme Coin. This article contains a lot of practical information, whether you are a Meme Coin novice or a veteran player, you can get inspiration from it. Recommended reading!
Part 1: Employees of large companies jump into the crypto rabbit hole
You quit Meta to focus on memes and Crypto. How did your family and friends react? What do they think of meme coins?
Justin: I am more like a Crypto degen than a "person who quits a big company to start a business". Before joining Meta, I decided to work in Crypto for a long time, but I felt that I needed more experience in technology and teamwork, so I went to Meta. At that time, Meta also had a Crypto team, many of whom were veterans of the Libra project, the development team of the Move language was also among them, and Instagram even had an NFT business. As a result, not long after I joined, the bear market came, and Meta cut off all blockchain-related businesses and focused on the metaverse and AI.
At that time, I was earning a salary at Meta, while exchanging most of my income and stocks for cryptocurrencies. In my spare time, I also worked on various DeFi, NFT, SocialFi and Meme projects in Crypto. In 2023, we, as Chinese, held the first Blockchain + AI conference in New York with a scale of 1,000 people, and invited many star projects. These experiences helped me a lot in my subsequent entrepreneurship.
My family members are not very familiar with Crypto, but they fully support it. My dad even searches the news himself, and every time he sees Doge and Trump coins, he comes to ask me, "Have you bought any?" He's pretty cute.
Do they support you going All in Crypto?
Justin: I was a little hesitant at first. After all, giving up such a good treatment at Meta to go to an "uncertain" industry is not a small risk. But life is a choice. You can't have a stable salary and seize the Alpha opportunity. I talked to them about the long-term certainty of Crypto, and they finally respected my decision. My dad even asked me to help him save some Bitcoin.
Did you make money or lose money on your meme coin investment? What do people around you think?
Justin: Overall, it is profitable, but the number of Meme coins that lose money is greater than the number of Meme coins that make money. The core strategy is: if I am optimistic about a certain Meme, I will bet heavily, such as Pepe in 2023, Degen in 2024, and Trump in 2025. In this way, even if most Memes return to zero, the ones that are bet on are enough to make a comeback.
I have seen many friends who "cast a wide net" and buy a little bit of every hot meme. It is indeed possible that they bet on a coin that returns a hundred times, but because their positions are too dispersed, their final returns are average, and they end up with a bunch of zero-coins lying in their wallets.
Before you entered the meme industry, did you ever fall into any pitfalls?
Justin: Meme investment is a "comprehensive subject" that requires understanding hot topics, emotions, culture, investment, and yourself. What I have learned the most in the past two years is that the market can make you lose money in many more ways than you think.
Part 2: Discussion on the Current Status of Meme Coin
CZ’s photo of his dog made the BNB chain Meme popular. What do you and your friends think?
Justin: CZ saw the trend of on-chain transaction volume and hoped to take advantage of it to boost the activity of the BNB chain, but the community response was not very good. Because he did not clearly "officially announce" which Broccoli was the orthodox version, hundreds of Broccoli appeared in the market in an instant, cutting off many retail investors and also dispersing liquidity.
The marketing aspect of this operation was very successful and indeed boosted the popularity of the BNB ecosystem. But the problem is that the emotions of retail investors are determined by whether they make money or not. Many people lost money and naturally complained. This model creates topics in the short term, but in the long run it may damage user trust.
Does the BNB ecosystem meme still have a chance to become popular?
Justin: There are certainly opportunities, but there is still a long way to go. The infrastructure of the BNB ecosystem cannot keep up with the needs of Meme transactions, such as transaction speed, infrastructure, stability, etc. Solana and Base have also gone through many rounds of polishing to have today's smooth experience, but BNB is obviously not ready this time. Pancake and Binance Wallet have serious lags, high slippage, and poor stability, which have caused many users to have difficulty in trading.
In addition, BNB needs to find its own breakthrough point, rather than simply copying the successful experience of other chains. Solana has Pump.fun to standardize the issuance of Meme, aggregate liquidity, and drive the trading tool ecosystem. BNB also needs a similar breakthrough. I think AI may be a direction, especially AI applications. Chinese people are very good at this field. If we can incubate "Pump.fun" in the AI era, it may revitalize the entire ecosystem.
Argentine President Milley took a single Meme coin and then Rug Pull left. What do you think?
Justin: Mile may have seen the popularity of Trump and other celebrity coins, and thought that he could combine Crypto to promote the Argentine economy and provide financing for private enterprises. The KIP team may have also provided him with some profit sharing. But he probably didn't expect that he would be cut later, causing the price of the coin to collapse and social media public opinion to explode, so he immediately deleted the post to shirk responsibility.
What do the Crypto traders or VCs around you think about this?
Justin: Many experts and founders on the blockchain have lost a lot of money, at least 10 million US dollars in total. Everyone is very angry about Mile’s deletion of the tweet, because the endorsement of national leaders allows them to take large positions. But Crypto is a casino, and every piece of information affects decision-making. The key is whether you can predict and respond to new information. For example, when Mile deleted the tweet, did you choose to cut losses or increase your position?
The most important thing is that traders should not develop a "loss aversion" mentality because of losses, and think about buying at the bottom to make up for the losses. Instead, they should calmly analyze whether to increase their positions or stop losses, just like seeing Mile's tweet. The essence of trading is to pay for your own decisions.
Will “national-level calls” become the new normal for Meme coins?
Justin: If 3-4 national-level Meme coins all follow the pattern of "skyrocketing when launched and plummeting to zero" within a short period of time, this way of playing will no longer work. People who have lost money will not get on board again, and later countries will not dare to play either.
If it wants to be established in the long run, it must find an economic model and gameplay that can operate sustainably. Otherwise, it will be like NFT, which will collapse after a short period of popularity.
Part 3: How should ordinary users play memes?
Many meme coin investors said that they "know it's a gamble, but they just can't help but rush in." What do you think of this mentality?
Justin: Meme coins give people a sense of excitement of "grassroots counterattack", which is similar to the mechanism of casinos to attract people, but the rise and fall of Meme far exceeds that of casinos, even making casinos seem a bit boring. Although most people lose money in the end, the stories of getting rich a hundred times or a thousand times still make people believe that "I may be the next one to turn over." Even if you lose money, you will continue to rush because the FOMO mentality is at work.
But it’s okay to rush, but rushing strategically will make you live longer. A true trader will carefully select targets with a winning rate, rather than going all-in when seeing a meme. At the same time, set a clear stop-profit and stop-loss strategy so as not to be led by market sentiment.
If I were an ordinary investor, how would I judge which meme coins have potential and which are purely for profiteering?
Justin: Due to time constraints, I rarely have the time to sit in front of the computer and continue to pay attention to newly launched memes and participate in the internal trading stage. Therefore, I prefer to choose medium- and long-term memes with a life cycle of more than a few hours. This requires judging the narrative, chip structure, profit and loss ratio of the meme, and whether it has the explosive power of social communication.
Narrative
In terms of narrative judgment, I think there are two key points: the number of people covered and the depth of resonance. First, it depends on whether the narrative can reach enough people; second, whether it can impress these people and make them resonate. If the narrative is too niche, although it is not necessarily bad, it has a limited ceiling and is difficult to spread on a large scale. Some well-known IPs may not be suitable as memes because people may not resonate and identify with them. These two points are indispensable.
Token Distribution
You need to determine whether this project has traces of a banker. Generally speaking, the banker’s wallet will definitely appear in the Top 100, so you can focus on digging into the Top 100 addresses, paying special attention to the second period of sideways trading, when the banker is most likely to come out and absorb funds.
The market-making wallet mainly looks at the number of transactions. Its function is to cash out and distribute at high levels, absorb chips to protect the market, and gradually raise the bottom. At the same time, it harvests the chips of retail investors at a loss and transfers the chips to diamond hands and large investors.
Trading volume is also a good way to judge the market maker. I usually use trading volume/market value to judge. If this value remains >1 for a long time, it means that the market maker of this plate is still very strong.
Address library management: Every time I find a banker, I will save the address, which may be used again in the future, similar to the way of tracking smart money.
Risk-Reward Ratio
You need to set a target price for the token based on your narrative judgment. For example, PNUT may be a 1B narrative, while Trump is a 100B narrative. Based on the current market value and your target price, you can determine whether it is worth investing and how much position you should invest. For example, Dogshit2, a narrative I am optimistic about recently, I think it can reach a market value of at least 100M, but it is currently only 2M, which makes me see a 50x upside, so I will choose to invest a certain position and follow my judgment.
Virality
You need to quickly determine who is following this token on Twitter, deduce their communication relationship, and analyze which potential circles or KOLs may pay attention to it in the future. This requires a certain accumulation of the KOL value of the core circle of the meme. You can use tools such as Katio or The1 to analyze the influence of the KOL who shouts orders and assist in judging its communication potential.
Many meme experts have summarized a lot of excellent investment advice. I recommend that you check out the "From 0 to 10 million US dollars Meme Operation Guide" written by GMGN and chain experts. There are many in-depth analyses on selecting meme targets and corresponding stop-profit and stop-loss strategies. This guide is a very practical reference. GMGN: From 0 to 10 million US dollars Meme Operation Guide.pdf
How do you view a meme project? Do you set a "stop profit" or "stop loss" rule?
Justin: Looking at a meme is divided into several stages: obtaining information → evaluation → investment → take profit/stop loss.
Get information: There should be as many information channels as possible, while ensuring the quality of information. I will discuss in the groups of some core players on the chain, and also follow the Twitter and TG groups of high-quality KOLs to ensure that I can be the first to know when high-quality projects appear. In addition, I will also keep an eye on the signals on the chain and try not to miss potential targets.
Quick evaluation: After discovering a potential meme, you need to make a quick judgment. Twitter mutual friends is a very helpful dimension for judgment. This requires your Twitter follow list to be well-trained, pay more attention to high-quality KOLs, and continuously accumulate high-quality information sources. This is the magic weapon for judging the quality of the project. Next, evaluate the narrative, chip structure and profit and loss ratio according to the methods mentioned above, and then decide whether to invest and the size of the investment position.
Stop-profit and stop-loss strategy: My strategy is to double or triple the investment first, and then stop the remaining part in stages according to the ideal valuation. Memes change too quickly, so I will not set rigid stop-profit and stop-loss standards, but adjust them in real time based on market sentiment. For example, the sudden deletion of the tweet by Argentine President Milley cannot be predicted in advance. When such an emergency occurs, stop loss must be stopped immediately without hesitation.
If you were asked to give three pieces of survival advice to meme investors, what would you say?
Justin: 1. Learn to judge the emotion, spreadability, durability, and periodicity of a topic. Whether a meme can become popular depends not only on the narrative itself, but also on whether its emotion can continue to ferment.
2. If you think a meme is good in terms of narrative, chip structure, and profit-loss ratio, you must be bold in taking a position and not blindly diversify your investments. Too much diversification may prevent you from catching big gains, and you may end up with "working hard for a long time, but only earning pocket money."
3. Loss is part of success. Carefully analyze the reasons for each loss, make in-depth summaries, and apply them to the next investment. A true master is not one who does not lose money, but one who can learn from every loss and continuously optimize strategies.
Part 4: What will the future hold for Meme?
Do you think the hype around meme coins has peaked, or will there be even crazier ways to play in the future?
Justin: I think there will be even crazier ways to play than Pump.fun in the future. Meme culture runs through the entire history. Before the emergence of blockchain, people were already good at playing with memes and culture, which is one of the indispensable pleasures in life. Blockchain gives memes a more efficient way to create and spread, making it possible for an IP to quickly become popular, which is something that traditional cultural communication efficiency cannot achieve.
I think that social networking, news and memes will be more closely integrated in the future. What would it be like if every piece of news and hot topic could correspond to a meme? Maybe the future meme ecosystem will not only be a transaction, but also a consensus carrier for some kind of news hotspot, allowing people to participate in it in a more intuitive way. This will be very interesting and may also be the next big opportunity.
If you were asked to predict the meme market in 2025, do you think it will continue to be popular?
Justin: Meme will not only continue to be popular in 2025, but will also permeate the entire market for a long time. Meme has become a new generation of news, hot topics and cultural expression, and it builds consensus through the price of the currency.
Hot topics will continue to appear, trendy culture will continue to evolve, and popular figures will continue to emerge, but the popular trends are different every year. Therefore, if you want to seize opportunities in the Meme field, you must be sensitive to the world's hot topics, including technology, culture, trends, politics and other fields.
Every field will have its own leading Meme. Investors can choose the direction they are good at, play to their strengths, and dare to seize opportunities when the right Meme appears.
Do you think it is possible for the meme ecosystem to become a "valuable long-term asset"?
Justin: To understand the essence of Meme, it is actually a kind of information with dissemination properties. Whether a Meme can become popular depends on whether the information it carries (culture, memes, news, popular figures, etc.) can accumulate enough attention and dissemination effect in a short period of time. This is similar to the hot search mechanism, the difference is that Meme is measured by transaction volume and market value, while hot searches are judged by post popularity and views.
So, to determine whether a meme has long-term value, we need to see whether the information it carries has the ability to spread over a long period of time or periodically. For example:
Doge is mentioned by Musk from time to time. At the same time, it is linked to the efficiency issues of the US government and has long-term discussion value, so Doge has become a long-term meme.
Memes like PNUT have extremely strong real-time explosive power, but it is difficult to predict whether there will be a suitable scenario for it to explode again in the future, so its long-term properties are relatively weak.
At present, only a few memes have long-term value, and most memes are still short-term hot spots and do not have the ability to explode again. The life cycle of these memes is like a fashion trend. There are new trends every year, and old memes are gradually eliminated. Therefore, the meme ecosystem will continue to evolve, but only a few can truly become long-term assets.
