Interview: Zhang Wen & Jack, BlockBeats

Compiled by Kaori, BlockBeats

As a Crypto trading and entertainment blogger, the old driver in the currency circle records his years of experience and operations in the industry on social platforms. Becoming a KOL seems to be a natural thing for him, who was originally responsible for brand KOL on the trading platform.

Like other industries, it is not easy to become a KOL in Crypto now. You cannot become a KOL just by showing your orders. In order to understand the experience of a veteran in the cryptocurrency circle, BlockBeats talked to him about his journey as a KOL, a post-95s cryptocurrency investor who has been in the cryptocurrency industry for 8 years.

BlockBeat: Please briefly introduce your work experience. When and why did you enter Crypto?

Veteran: I have worked in many platforms, including Huobi, Xinhuo Technology, etc., as a brand KOL leader, event organizer, etc., and participated in the promotion of many digital currency brands. Now I have joined a new digital currency trading platform and am preparing for online operations.

I majored in securities and investment in college, and every student needs to open a stock account. My family gave me 80,000 yuan to speculate in A-shares, but I caught up with the stock market crash in 2015 and lost 30,000 yuan. When I lost money, I also tried futures and gold, but these require a lot of money. I don’t know enough about them, and I think they are relatively traditional and old.

I don’t remember which QQ group or forum I saw the news about Da Hongfei’s NEO private placement. The issue price was one yuan. If I remember correctly, I bought 5,000 yuan. Then NEO opened abnormally, doubling directly. If you were speculating in stocks, you would be very happy if it increased by about 10 or 20 points, but this market could increase many times in a day. At that time, I thought this market was very interesting. At that time, 5,000 doubled to 10,000 yuan, and I happily withdrew my principal.

Because I graduated from a second-tier university, the big fund companies were reluctant to hire me. A boss wanted to transfer money to his son who was studying abroad. He accidentally discovered the speculative potential of Bitcoin and asked me about some private placement coins. Then I joined his small fund in my sophomore year and observed some hot coins in the market with my boss. Not long after, TRX came out and rose an astonishing 100 times in about a month. From then on, I began to understand this market in depth.

BlockBeats: Does your finance background help you in Crypto?

Veteran: The knowledge taught in school is not very useful. However, I think the method I learned from the fund boss is very practical. For example, if you think a token has the potential to rise, go to its social group or community to check the latest announcements, dynamics, etc. Look at the active fans of the project. If it is a token that few people are interested in and has no trading volume, the probability of rising is small. I have been using this method to select tokens.

I can share a very rough method to judge whether a project has money, which is to see whether it conducts activities on the trading platform. If the trading platform puts the token in the first few positions and conducts promotion activities very prominently, then the token must have sufficient financial support. You can consider buying some of these tokens, which actually has a good chance of making a profit.

BlockBeats: What was your main job in the fund at that time, and what things helped you improve your knowledge?

Veteran: Actually, I think the only thing that can improve cognition is losing money. When you lose money in the market, you will seriously make up your mind to study some tokens and fields.

Compared to fund companies, I think my understanding may have been improved after I went to Huobi and followed the leaders inside Huobi. They gave me not only the improvement of investment direction, but also the improvement of some core values ​​and worldview of Crypto, because I was in charge of brand KOL and marketing activities in Huobi at that time.

BlockBeats: To be more specific, what does this worldview refer to?

Veteran: Because many of them, whether they are veterans of Huobi or OKX, have accumulated a lot of experience in this market and will share some stories, including some positive and negative experiences, as well as the performance of the project side, and how to do something in the market, such as marketing, etc. Listening to these stories will allow you to have a better understanding of the market and look at things from a different perspective.

BlockBeats: What opportunity led you to Huobi?

Veteran: I have an article called "Putian Group Reborn in Douyin" with over 100,000 views. It was in the top 20 hot searches on Weibo at the time and was also interviewed by Tencent Research Institute. I was writing Internet public relations articles at the time. The reason why I wanted to enter Crypto was because Internet public relations is a high-risk profession. I have written public relations articles for Douyin, Pinduoduo, etc. before, and I was sued by them. After being sued, I felt that doing Internet public relations and entering Crypto were about the same risk.

There were two main reasons why I didn’t enter Crypto right away. The first was that the Crypto market was not good at the time; the second was that I felt that Crypto was still a relatively dangerous industry. Later, when I was doing Internet public relations and writing articles, I found that there was also the risk of being sued by the company or even being sued, so I decided to switch to Crypto.

I wrote a cover letter to some of my former friends at Huobi, explaining my situation, why I wanted to get into Crypto, and what I could do. Since I had been in Crypto for a long time, I knew a lot of people, and I had been a KOL myself, so I had a lot of resources. So I mentioned these in the letter, and Huobi was willing to let me go over to help deal with public opinion issues. I actually started out doing public relations at Huobi, but later my boss found out that I was more sensitive to KOLs and public opinion, so he transferred me over to be in charge of KOLs.

BlockBeats: Your work at Huobi and Xinhuo was probably similar. Do you feel there are any differences?

Veteran: In fact, there are still big differences between Xinhuo and Huobi. As a trading platform, Huobi had abundant cash flow at the time. When Mr. Li was there, the cash flow was particularly abundant. When we were doing marketing activities or planning, we basically could ignore the cost because of sufficient funds. Whether it was finding Internet celebrities or other promotions, they were done very well, and Huobi basically had no public opinion crisis at that time. It was not until around 2021 that Huobi slowly had some public opinion problems. But when we were in charge of the market, because the budget was relatively sufficient, there was basically no public opinion.

Xinhuo Technology has sufficient funds, but because it is a compliant platform and holds a license in Hong Kong, it can only seek Hong Kong KOLs for promotion, which makes promotion more difficult.

BlockBeats: What are your main responsibilities at the current trading platform?

Lao Siji: He is also the head of brand KOL, responsible for inviting media and KOL or handling public opinion of some brands. This position exists in every trading platform, such as Hai Teng of OKX and SiSi of Binance.

What is a day like for a KOL?

BlockBeats: How did you become a KOL?

Veteran: Being a KOL actually involves a lot of detours. I remember that in the early days of the bull market in 2018, I was shorted and my position went bankrupt. After that, I bought some DeFi project coins, especially some popular DeFi projects. In the end, RVN had the biggest increase. At that time, the principal was not much, only tens of thousands of yuan. But RVN increased by 40 to 50 times, which made me regain my confidence. Since then, I have been playing in this market.

At the beginning, I never thought that I could become a KOL. At that time, I just wrote some content about K-line charts and market analysis. Later, my public account had more and more followers, and more and more people came to me for consultation. I gradually realized that this was actually a kind of accumulation of resources. Many opportunities would come to me on their own initiative, so I persisted.

BlockBeats: Do you learn trading on your own in your spare time?

Veteran: Yes, when I am free, I will look at some KOLs’ operation ideas such as Chuanmu and Huage. Their ideas are usually very obvious. For example, they mention which coin may rise, and then you can find out their research direction and their ideas for judging the rise of coins by checking the candlestick chart, trading volume, the latest hot news and the information they posted on social platforms such as Telegram or Discord. In fact, every KOL will shout about coins or say which coin will rise, you just need to carefully study why he said so.

BlockBeats: So your learning ideas or paths are mainly to study other KOLs. Many people may have a problem, that is, they also follow Twitter, but when they open Twitter, they don’t know what to see today, and they don’t know what specifically to do. Can you give them some advice?

Old driver: I generally don’t pay much attention to KOLs who are interested in shilling, because I am not very sensitive to the primary market and don’t participate in it much. I mainly work in the secondary market, so I just browse the KOLs who are interested in shilling to see the hot projects they are paying attention to recently and understand what coins they are shilling. I won’t study them carefully.

I pay more attention to those KOLs who focus on market conditions and macro analysis, and see what coins they recommend every day and why they recommend them. Some KOLs will also share their trading ideas and explain why they recommend a certain coin. You need to understand their thinking process. Because most of the content published by KOLs is not random, they have a well-thought-out process.

At present, I mainly follow some bloggers related to trading, as well as some new information officially released by some trading platforms. If you don’t understand some content, I remember that you have a weekly market analysis on GreenMotion, which is very valuable for some novices to refer to. You can understand the market dynamics in the past week. I think this is very necessary for novices, because my own public account was also written in this way, which attracted many novice users. Such content is very helpful to them.

BlockBeats: So what is your own trading style? For example, some people hold coins or long-term, while some people are pure short-term traders, holding positions for a few minutes or one or two days.

Veteran: I don’t trade purely short-term. It’s too frequent and tiring. I basically just look at the 15-minute to 1-hour lines. I’m not a short-term trader. I won’t be a complete coin holder. I won’t hoard a coin at one time and hold it for a year. My trading style is more like mid-term. I will sell the coin after holding it for two or three months and switch to the next one. For example, if Ethereum is upgrading in January, I will arrange some OP and ARB three or four months in advance, and then wait for the hot spots.

It can be understood as speculating on coins with hot news. For example, BAYC has risen again recently, so I might buy some APE and other tokens recently. Then the amount of APE released is large, and I dare not buy too much. Maybe I will count it as my own holding position.

BlockBeats: In terms of news, what is your daily process for receiving information? For example, today I open WeChat and see what is being said in the group, and then Twitter, Telegram, Discord, etc.

Veteran: I first check WeChat and browse the messages in various groups. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to browse the messages in some groups I follow. Then, I will check Twitter to understand what people are discussing, what KOLs are buying, and what KOLs in the primary market are paying attention to. This process of browsing Twitter takes about ten minutes.

Then I go to the Telegram group. I mainly pay attention to the activity of the Telegram group. If a project's Telegram group has a lot of messages on it, more than usual, I will focus on it to see what happened and what they are discussing. For those chats that are not particularly prominent, I usually don't pay attention to them. I just look at the activity level and the number of people chatting every day.

I also check Discord because it usually releases some important official news and the information is better categorized. I will browse the important news and find out what they promoted today. Then I will check the project parties I follow to find out what they are doing recently, what they are playing, and whether there are any important announcements.

Finally, I will check the news from Rhythm and Planet to understand what important events have happened in the market and whether there is any important information push. If there is important information, I will record it in the memo to remind myself that there may be important information today and I need to think about its possible impact on the market.

BlockBeats: After several rounds of market, many KOLs come and go. Those who were very popular before disappeared later, and then a new wave of people came up, and the next wave disappeared again. Many people opened paid groups or promoted private coins. So I don’t know what you think of the current ecology of Chinese KOLs on Twitter or the various operations of everyone?

Veteran: I think this is normal. In the Crypto market, as long as there is good content, it can grow quickly. For example, SPL specializes in comparing and analyzing new coins, and Phrex Ni, who does macro analysis, has a much larger number of fans than me.

I am not against paid groups. Newcomers to Crypto need education and guidance, and paid groups are the first lesson. Although many paid groups are not very useful, they do meet the entry needs of newcomers. This market does not have a complete learning system like the stock market, and there is not much information available online, so newcomers may need guidance from teachers. The price of paid groups is not expensive, and the tuition fee of three to four thousand yuan is acceptable. So I think these are all normal phenomena in this market. If there is demand, there will be supply.

Is platform currency the code to wealth?

BlockBeats: Can you tell us what your current larger holdings are?

Veteran: Now I will keep a small position, about 10% of the funds, to follow Chuanmu's short-term operation ideas, because I think his short-term trading is very powerful. That is, I choose the top three coins with the largest trading volume and the largest increase every day. At the same time, I will have a small position of 10% to buy some popular tokens on Binance.

I will plan some projects myself. For example, I bought a lot of OP. Coinbase uses it as gas fee and OP cooperates with many projects. People's expectations for OP are not as high as ARB, so I bought some OP. I have some APE and SAND in the GameFi sector.

I have a lot of platform coins because I think most of the coins have no real support. The only ones that have support are platform coins. In every bull market, the platform coins have a very large increase. This year, I bought some MX at around $1.2, and then I sold it when it rose to more than $2. Now I regret it. I don’t buy more BNB and OKB because their market capitalization is too large. I prefer to buy some coins in the top 200 or 300 by market capitalization.

BlockBeats: So how do you usually look at trading opportunities?

Veteran: In addition to being a KOL, I also learn other people's ideas. For example, some people are good at high leverage chasing ups and downs, and their winning rate is very high, so I will study their practices. For example, today a certain coin rose by 17%. When it fell back to 15%, they used 100U positions to open high leverage and bet that it would continue to rise the next day. If the position is liquidated, it will be liquidated. If it is not liquidated, continue to open positions to chase ups. I will observe their ideas and opinions, and then try to apply and integrate them into my own ideas.

For example, Chuanmu adopts the idea of ​​chasing up and selling down. This method is very effective from the perspective of right-side thinking. He may also combine K-line operation. Buying some currencies that have been at the bottom for a long time but suddenly increase in volume can be called the right-side thinking operation method. And the newly started currencies will not only pull one wave, but often can pull two or three waves in a row, so he will take advantage of the trend to eat up the gains in the middle.

Chuanmu's approach is to pay attention to the top three gainers on Binance every day, the top three with the largest trading volume, and the top three with holdings close to 80% of the market value. He will choose to buy these currencies. I remember that he publicly released his thoughts on buying coins on Twitter, and I will save that screenshot for reference.

I will use a small position to test the trading opportunities. Secondly, I will buy some hot coins based on some hot spots. In fact, ETH still has the largest holdings.

BlockBeats: Half of the people think that we may have entered a bull market or are in the early stages of a bull market, while the other half think that risks still exist and the market may continue to fall. What is your current view of the market?

Veteran: I did a survey on Twitter on the asset range of $25,000 to $35,000, which is the current profit, loss and short position ratio. The results show that the current profit is 30%, the loss is 40%, and the short position is 30%. This wave is indeed before the Bitcoin halving, but from some macro factors that Phrex Ni and I discussed, I think Bitcoin's entry into a bull market depends on when the Federal Reserve starts to release water.

Halving is only one aspect of the positives. The Fed’s interest rate cuts and money supply are the key to pushing Bitcoin into a bull market. I remember that Phrex Ni said there are still opportunities next year and the year after, so I will also buy a larger position based on his advice recently.

Regarding market sentiment, I think there has indeed been a bull run recently, but this bull run is more emotional because a Cointelegraph intern released fake news, causing everyone to now look forward to news of ETF approval.

I remember that Mr. Ni said that in January, Wood Sister will have a final approval for an ETF, which will have a significant impact on market sentiment and may be a time point for digesting sentiment. If that ETF is approved, BlackRock may also pass the review later. So I think this is an emotion-driven market, a small bull market, which is a little bit different from the previous violent bull market.

BlockBeats: From a fundamental perspective, before the ETF is approved, market participants may look for some new narratives to hype, such as RWA, Bitcoin ecology, etc. What do you think of these emerging narratives?

Old driver: Actually, I have consulted some friends about the coins I bought, such as Hua Ge and DeFi miners. They are not optimistic about these new coins and think that they have limited impact on the industry. But I have also discussed with Chuanmu, Jingxiang, and Naizige. They think that any new thing is worth investing in, just like Uni when DeFi first appeared. Although it was very slow at the beginning and there was no trading platform, it still skyrocketed in the later period. I think we need to have some awe in Crypto. Many things that we don’t understand or think are not easy to use now may become very good in a year or two.

I have invested in ordi before, but I have sold it now because I don’t see any substantial progress in the Bitcoin ecosystem. If there are more optimizations or explosive applications in the future, I may buy it again.

Regarding the RWA market, many people have already made plans, including Sun Ge who bought US Treasury bonds and some big guys I know. I can only say that it is indeed very attractive and the yield is very high. In Crypto, everyone's goal is to make money. As long as there is a yield and expectation, I think this thing is still good.

But I think RWA has some risks, because many people don’t trust Crypto now, so many RWAs are current and give you a very high annualized rate of return, which leads to great risks in current products.

In this case, some funds may be temporarily deposited with you just to make some money, and after a few days, they may leave because they feel that the annualized rate of return is not high enough. But if you deposit a fixed-term product in the U.S. Treasury market, you may not have enough funds when it matures, which will lead to a loss.

BlockBeats: Do you have a narrative that you’re optimistic about right now?

Lao Siji: I am optimistic about the GameFi field because I think it has great potential when combined with cryptocurrency and NFT. I also like playing games and am very optimistic about GameFi.

In addition, I am also optimistic about the platform token sector. I have positions in platform tokens such as Bitget and MEXC. In a bull market, platform tokens usually perform well, unlike other fields that need to wait for the development of applications. Once the market heats up, platform tokens are likely to strengthen quickly, which is why I have always been optimistic about this field.

As for the Hong Kong concept, I am not very optimistic about it. I have discussed some situations with others in Hong Kong, and I feel that if you want to develop in the compliant market, the government's regulatory restrictions will be very strict, so in my opinion, the Hong Kong sector may face some difficulties in these areas.

The assets I hold the most recently are ETH and OP. I am going to take a gamble and see if the upgrade will boost the market.

Views on the current crypto market

BlockBeats: Do you think there is still a chance for new trading platforms to emerge?

Veteran: There is definitely a chance, because the market is still in its early stages. Take FTX for example, it was the second largest trading platform in the world and it could go bankrupt, which shows that even small trading platforms have a chance to rise. Not many people knew about Bitget last year, but it rose suddenly from last year to this year.

So I think this market still has great opportunities, whether it is a decentralized trading platform or a centralized trading platform. As long as any decentralized trading platform does a good job in optimization and market, it can survive in this market. The trading platform itself has a huge profit margin, and as long as the market is well captured, the cash flow will be continuous.

BlockBeats: I see. You just said that small trading platforms can take off as soon as they find an opportunity. But now Binance and OKX may have already developed most of the products you can think of. So are there any new or targeted markets that these new trading platforms can enter?

Veteran: For example, Binance gave up the Russian market due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. At that time, Huobi’s overseas market was not doing well. Seeing Binance give up the Russian and Ukrainian markets, we rushed to grab this wave of people. In about two weeks, Huobi’s trading volume in South Korea and Russia accounted for about 80%.

So although Binance and OKX occupy a large volume in many regions, they will give up many markets due to compliance issues. At this time, if other trading platforms grab these abandoned markets, many of them will be able to rise.

For example, when Binance gave up the Korean market, Bitget went to enter the Korean market. It invested a lot of money to find Korean KOLs, do market PR and local activities, and then directly took over this market. As long as a large trading platform gives up a market, it will be very, very good for other trading platforms.

BlockBeats: This is quite interesting. I heard that MEXC and KuCoin are doing well overseas?

Veteran: MEXC’s main trading volume is still in Asia. MEXC’s market optimization is indeed aimed at overseas markets, but it is probably not as good as KuCoin. Because KuCoin was heavily promoted when the market was particularly good last year, but MEXC, like Huobi, only transformed into blockchain after the withdrawal tide in 2017. KuCoin also entered the overseas market much earlier than them, and their volume is definitely not as large as KuCoin.

BlockBeats: So from a global perspective, if Binance is still number one, who do you think are the second to fifth trading platforms?

Veteran: There is no doubt that OKX is in second place. Among overseas trading platforms, Coinbase and Kraken also have large trading volumes. I think it’s hard to say who is in fifth place. The fourth and fifth places may be Bybit, which is doing very well overseas.

All trading platforms want to do business in Asia, because the volume in Asia is huge. You know, Asians love to gamble. The volume in the United States comes more from Wall Street and some financial groups and foundations, which are more formal. So the trading volume in Asia is actually quite large. Now all the major trading platforms are competing mainly for the Asian region. Funds like Binance and OKX in Europe are basically not involved. First, because of compliance issues, and second, because the volume there is actually not as large as in Asia.

A trader who doesn’t know how to do public relations is not a good KOL

BlockBeats: Do you have a specific plan now? What goals do you want to achieve?

Lao Siji: I really like the position of KOL manager because I can establish connections with many KOLs and handle some public opinions. I am very interested in the public relations industry and like to interact and chat with people, especially in the field of cryptocurrency. This position will receive more information than others. So my future goal may still be to develop in the direction of public relations.

BlockBeats: As a KOL in the Crypto industry, its value leverage is actually quite high.

Veteran: Yes, if you are a very successful KOL, it is easy to jump to some trading platforms, because many trading platforms need someone to help promote them. Whether it is to handle public opinion or help them promote activities, many trading platforms welcome KOLs.