Interview: Zhang Wen & Jack, BlockBeats

Editor: Kaori, BlockBeats

As a Crypto trader and entertainment blogger, the veteran driver in the industry records his experiences and operations on social platforms. Becoming a KOL seems to be a natural progression for him, who was originally responsible for brand KOL on trading platforms.

Like any other industry, becoming a KOL in the crypto industry is not easy. Simply showing off profits does not guarantee KOL status. To understand the experiences of a veteran in the industry, BlockBeats spoke with a 95's crypto expert who has been in the industry for 8 years.

BlockBeat: Please briefly introduce your work experience and when and why you entered the Crypto industry?

Driver: I have worked in multiple platforms, including Huobi and New Fire Technology, as a brand KOL manager and event organizer, and participated in the promotion of multiple digital currency brands. Now I have joined a new digital currency trading platform and am preparing for its launch and operation.

Majoring in securities and investment in college, every student needs to open a stock account. My family gave me 80,000 yuan to invest in A-shares, but I encountered the stock market crash in 2015 and lost 30,000 yuan. During the loss, I also tried futures and gold, but these require a large amount of capital, and I don't know enough about them. I also feel that they are relatively traditional and outdated.

I don't remember where I saw the news about Da Hongfei's NEO private placement, whether it was in a QQ group or a forum. The issue price was one yuan, and if I remember correctly, I bought 5,000 yuan worth. Then NEO's opening price was crazy, it doubled immediately. If it were stocks, you would be ecstatic with a gain of ten or twenty percent, but in this market, it could multiply many times in a day. At that time, my investment of 5,000 yuan doubled to 10,000 yuan, and I happily withdrew my principal.

Because I graduated from a second-tier university, large fund companies were not willing to hire me. One boss wanted to transfer money to his son studying abroad and discovered the speculative potential of Bitcoin. He asked me about some private coins. Later, in my sophomore year, I joined his small fund and observed some popular currencies in the market with the boss. Not long after, TRX came out and rose an astonishing 100 times in about a month. From then on, I began to delve deeper into this market.

BlockBeats: Does a financial background help you in Crypto?

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

You can share a very crude method to determine whether a project party has money, which is to see if they are active on the trading platform. If the trading platform puts the token in the top few positions and promotes it prominently, then the token must have enough financial support. You can consider buying some of these tokens, which can actually be quite profitable.

BlockBeats: What kind of work did you mainly do in the fund at that time, and what were the things that improved your cognition?

老司机：Actually, I think the only thing that can really improve your understanding is losing money. When you lose money in the market, you become determined to research certain tokens and fields.

Compared to fund companies, I feel that after joining Huobi and following the internal leaders, my understanding has been greatly improved. They have given me not only an improvement in investment direction, but also an improvement in some core values and worldviews related to Crypto, because at that time I was responsible for brand KOL and marketing activities in Huobi.

BlockBeats: What does this worldview refer to in concrete terms?

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

BlockBeats: What kind of opportunity did you have to go to Huobi at that time?

Old Driver: I have an article called "Putian System Reborn on Douyin" with over 100,000 words. It ranked in the top 20 on Weibo's hot search and was also interviewed by Tencent Research Institute. I used to write internet public relations articles, but I wanted to enter the crypto industry because internet public relations is a high-risk profession. I have written public relations articles for Douyin, Pinduoduo, and others, but I was sued by them. After being sued, I felt that the risks of doing internet public relations and entering the crypto industry were similar.

There were two main reasons why I didn't enter the Crypto industry at the first time. Firstly, the Crypto market was not doing well at that time. Secondly, I thought that Crypto was still a relatively risky industry. Later, when I was doing internet public relations and writing articles, I found that there was also a risk of being sued by the company or even facing a lawsuit. Therefore, I decided to switch to Crypto.

I wrote a self-recommendation letter to some friends at Huobi whom I knew before, introducing my situation, why I want to enter the Crypto industry, and what I can do. As I have been in the Crypto industry for a long time and know many people, and have also been a KOL, I have abundant resources. Therefore, I mentioned these in the letter, and Huobi is also willing to let me help with public opinion issues. Actually, I started working in the public relations department at Huobi, but later my boss found that I was more sensitive to KOL and public opinion, so he transferred me to be in charge of KOL.

BlockBeats: So, did you feel any difference between working at Huobi and Xinhuo?

Driver: In fact, there are significant differences between Xinhuo and Huobi. As a trading platform, Huobi had very abundant cash flow at that time. When Mr. Li was there, the cash flow was particularly abundant. When we did marketing activities or planning, we could basically ignore the cost because of sufficient funds. Whether it was finding internet celebrities or other promotions, they were all done very well, and at that time, Huobi basically had no public opinion crisis. It wasn't until around 2021 that Huobi slowly began to have some public opinion issues. But when we were in charge of the market, because the budget was relatively sufficient, there were basically no public opinions.

New Fire Technology has sufficient funds, but due to being a compliant platform and holding a license in Hong Kong, they can only rely on Hong Kong KOLs for promotion, which poses greater difficulty in terms of promotion.

BlockBeats: What are your main responsibilities at the trading platform you currently work for?

老司机: Also the brand KOL responsible person, responsible for inviting media and KOL or handling some brand public opinion. This position exists on every trading platform, such as OKX's Haiteng and Binance's SiSi, who are actually in this position.

A day in the life of a KOL?

BlockBeats: How did you become a KOL?

Driver: Becoming a KOL actually involves a lot of detours. I remember in the early days of the bull market in 2018, my short position was liquidated, and then I bought some coins of DeFi projects, especially some popular DeFi projects. The one with the highest increase was RVN, and my initial investment was not much, probably only tens of thousands of yuan. But RVN rose four or five times, which gave me back my confidence, and I have been playing in this market ever since.

At the beginning, I never thought I could become a KOL. At that time, I was only writing content about candlestick charts and market analysis. Later on, my WeChat public account gained more and more followers, and more and more people came to me for consultation. I gradually realized that this was actually a accumulation of resources, and many opportunities would come to me actively. So I persisted.

BlockBeats: Are you learning trading in your spare time?

I have more configurations in platform coins because I think most currencies do not have substantial support, and the only support is platform coins. Every bull market, the platform coin has a very large increase. This year, I bought some MX at around 1.2 US dollars, and later sold it when it rose to more than 2 US dollars. Now I regret it a bit. I don't buy much BNB and OKB because their market value is too large. I prefer to buy some currencies with a market value in the top two or three hundred.

BlockBeats: How do you usually identify trading opportunities?

Driver: In addition to being a KOL, I also learn from other people's strategies. For example, some people are good at using high leverage to chase rising and falling prices, with a high success rate. So I will study their methods. For example, if a certain currency rises by 17% today and then falls back to 15%, they will use a 100U position to open a high leverage bet that it will continue to rise the next day. If they get liquidated, they get liquidated, but if not, they continue to open positions to chase the rise. I will observe their thinking and opinions, and then try to apply and integrate them into my own strategies.

For example, Chuanmu adopts the strategy of chasing the rise and killing the fall. From the perspective of right-thinking, this method is very effective. He may also operate with K-line. Buying some coins that have been at the bottom for a long time but suddenly have a large volume can be called the operation method of right-thinking. And the newly started coins will not only pull up once, often can pull up two or three times in a row, so he will take advantage of the middle rise.

Chuanmu's approach is to pay attention to the top three gainers on Binance's leaderboard, the top three in trading volume, and the top three with a position close to 80% of market value. He will choose to buy these currencies. I remember he publicly shared his buying strategy on Twitter, and I saved the screenshot as a reference.

I will use a small position to try out trading opportunities, and secondly, I will buy some hot coins based on some hot topics. The coin with the largest position is actually ETH.

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

Driver: I conducted a survey on Twitter for the asset range of $25,000 to $35,000, which shows the current ratio of profit, loss, and empty positions. The results show that currently 30% are profitable, 40% are losing, and 30% are empty. This wave is indeed before the halving of Bitcoin, but based on some macro factors discussed with Phrex Ni, I believe that whether Bitcoin enters a bull market still depends on when the Federal Reserve starts to loosen its monetary policy.

Halving is just one positive aspect, while the Fed's interest rate cuts and liquidity injections are the key drivers of Bitcoin's bull market. I remember Phrex Ni saying that there will still be opportunities next year and the year after, so I will also buy a larger position based on his advice recently.

Regarding the market outlook, I believe that there has indeed been a small bull run recently, but this bull market is more emotional because a Cointelegraph intern released false news, causing everyone to now expect news of ETF approval.

I remember that Teacher Ni said that there will be a final approval for an ETF by Mu Tou Jie in January, which will have a significant impact on the market sentiment and may be a time point for digesting emotions. If that ETF is approved, BlackRock may also pass in the future. So I think that the current market is driven by emotions, belonging to a small bull market, which is a bit less mature than the previous violent bull market.

BlockBeats: From a fundamental perspective, before the approval of ETFs, market participants may seek new narratives for speculation, such as RWA and the Bitcoin ecosystem. How do you view these emerging narratives?

Driver: Actually, I consulted some friends about the coins I purchased, such as Huage, DeFi small miner, etc. They don't think these new coins are promising and have limited impact on the industry. However, I also discussed with Chuanmu, Jingxiang, and Naizi, and they believe that anything new is worth investing in, just like Uni when DeFi first appeared. Although it was slow and had no trading platform at the beginning, it still skyrocketed later. I think we need to have some awe in Crypto, and many things that we don't understand or think are not user-friendly now may become very good in a year or two.

Previously, I invested in ordi, but I have since sold it because I cannot see any substantial progress in the Bitcoin ecosystem. If there are more optimizations or explosive applications in the future, I may buy back in.

Regarding the RWA market, many people have already been positioning themselves, including Sun, who buys US Treasury bonds, and some big shots I know. I can only say that it is indeed very attractive with a very high yield. In the Crypto industry, everyone's goal is to make money, as long as there is a yield and expectation, I think this thing is still good.

However, I think there are some risks with RWA because many people do not trust Crypto now, so many RWAs are current, and the annualized rate of return given to you is very high, which leads to a lot of risk for current products.

So in this way, some funds may be temporarily deposited with you just to take advantage of the benefits, and they may leave after a few days if they feel that the annualized return is not high enough. But if you are storing fixed-term products in the US Treasury market, you may not have enough funds when they mature, which could lead to a deficit.

BlockBeats: Do you have any favorite narratives now?

老司机： I am more optimistic about the GameFi field because I believe it has great potential when combined with cryptocurrency and NFT, and I also enjoy playing games.

In addition, I also hold a positive attitude towards the platform token field, and I have positions in platform coins such as Bitget and MEXC. During a bull market, platform tokens usually perform well, unlike other fields that require waiting for application development. Once the market heat of platform tokens rises, they may quickly become strong, which is also the reason 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 feel that if it is to develop in a compliant market, government regulatory restrictions will be very strict. Therefore, in my opinion, the Hong Kong sector may face some difficulties in these areas.

My most held assets recently are ETH and OP. I'm going to take a gamble and see if the upgrade will cause a price increase.

View on the current encryption market

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

Old driver: There is definitely a chance, because the market is still relatively early. Take FTX for example, as the world's second largest trading platform, it can also go bankrupt, which shows that even small trading platforms have the opportunity to rise. Not many people knew about Bitget last year, but it suddenly rose from last year to this year.

So I think this market still has a lot of opportunities, whether it's decentralized or centralized trading platforms. If any decentralized trading platform can optimize and perform well in the market, it can survive in this market. The profit space of trading platforms itself is very large, as long as the market is captured well, the cash flow will be continuous.

BlockBeats: Understand, you just mentioned that a small trading platform can rise if it finds an opportunity. However, Binance and OKX may have already developed most of the products that can be thought of. So, are there any relatively new or targeted markets that can be developed by these new trading platforms?

Driver: For example, due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Binance gave up the Russian market, while at that time Huobi's overseas market was not doing well. When we saw that Binance gave up the Russian and Ukrainian markets, we went to grab this wave of people. In about two weeks, Huobi's trading volume in South Korea and Russia accounted for about 80%.

Therefore, exchanges like Binance and OKX, although they occupy a large market share in many regions, will give up many markets due to compliance issues. At this time, if other trading platforms seize these abandoned markets, many of them can rise up.

For example, when Binance gave up the Korean market, Bitget went to target the Korean market. It invested a lot of funds 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 is a very good opportunity for other trading platforms.

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