How did a media editor discover $GOAT and make 250 times his profit?

"It's just that at the time, standing at the crossroads, seeing the clouds and waves, the day you made the choice, in the diary, it was quite dull and ordinary, and at the time I thought it was just an ordinary day in my life."

— "The Girl Who Killed Quail"

14 days ago, one of our ordinary editors, in the process of surfing the internet to find writing materials, accidentally discovered the nonsense of Terminal of Truth and saw its issued token $GOAT.

At the time, the editor put in 1 SOL, and until today when Binance announced the listing of GOAT's contract, this initial 1 SOL, if calculated at the time of writing, has a return rate of 250 times.

And that day when the goat just came out, there was almost no one introducing the beginning and end of the matter.

After a brief understanding, the editorial department felt that the narrative angle of the AI Bot issuing MEME was very interesting, so they wrote an article titled "Are AI all issuing MEME coins now? A quick review of a16z's investment, the MEME coin GOAT issued by the Bot".

If you carefully compare the release time, you will find that this is one of the earliest articles in the Chinese media to introduce GOAT; and it is precisely because of the early discovery that the final return is much greater than expected.

Compared to professional dog-fighting bloggers, on-chain scientists, and big shots in the circle, this profit, whether in terms of multiples or total amount, may not be considered much, or perhaps just a small magician seeing a great magician;

But we feel that this event may be more valuable for ordinary readers:

How did an relatively ordinary person who is not a professional trader, through the interpretation of public information and the use of free tools, maintain a good attitude and reap an unexpected surprise?

Here is his true story, shared with everyone.

Laughing before the rise, prophesying after the rise

This industry has always been ruthless in terms of the winner-take-all mentality and winning by rising.

If GOAT can reach where it is today, in hindsight everyone may feel that you are a prophet who successfully grasped the hottest coin; but if you look back 14 days ago, I think I was just one of the many on-chain meme farmers in PVP.

In addition to the daily editorial work, I also often lose my mind in the Solana on-chain meme arena.

However, precisely because of my main job, I inevitably have to keep up with new hot spots and narrative angles in my daily life, and then write the parts I find interesting into articles. This is driven by work, not active speculation.

Writing interesting and informative content is the main job.

So when I first saw GOAT, I was "laughing haha" about it, lacking a lot of serious investment decisions, and feeling more that the topic was interesting.

Of course, the final result is good, and I reaped an unexpected surprise.

Looking back, on the afternoon of October 11th, I wrote an article introducing a16z's investment in the Terminal of Truth Bot, and the Bot issuing its own token; it was almost at the beginning of writing this article that I made a lottery-like investment of 1 SOL, and the price of GOAT at the time was 0.0019.

Today, the price of GOAT is around 0.75, and compared to the initial entry price, the total assets have theoretically increased by 370 times.

However, I had already withdrawn the principal a long time ago, and later when someone FUDed the Terminal of Truth for misspelling an English word, causing the price to plummet, I added another 1 SOL.

If only the initial 1 SOL is calculated after doubling the principal, the profit is about 250 times.

Obviously, from the perspective of maximizing profits, I made at least two mistakes:

I shouldn't have only invested 1 SOL, the initial principal was too small;

I shouldn't have only added 1 SOL when FUDing, missing the opportunity to get on board again and only getting a small return;

However, I am neither a professional trader and researcher, nor a perpetual victory general-style big V with a lot of so-called Alpha groups.

These imperfections in operation, for an ordinary cryptocurrency practitioner without extra energy, bargaining power, and information advantages, I can accept.

And it is precisely because my initial total cost is only 1 SOL that I can laugh haha and hold it all the time, and even when I am busy with work, my heart is not too fluctuating, after all, it's just 1 SOL.

You should know that out of the 2.5 million tokens launched by Pump.fun, currently less than five have a market value of over $100 million, and one coin's success means the death of thousands.

So going all in, chasing heavily, there is a high chance of losing your mind.

Plus, my personality is relatively conservative, so since I can't be sure, and I find it a bit interesting, I might as well just execute the 1 SOL tactic.

So there's no such thing as a rich overnight prophet story, just a laughing haha who goes with the flow of ups and downs.

If I had dared to throw in $1,000 when GOAT first came out, and held it calmly until now, I probably wouldn't need to be working and writing stories anymore, such a ruthless person must be deeply hidden in glory.

Getting rich overnight is hard to replicate, but I think there is one thing that can be shared and referenced, that is, how to discover the goat and the Terminal of Truth relatively early.

"Rush early", is the comprehensive use of information and tools

If you are deeply involved in the on-chain meme PVP on Solana, you must be able to feel that the issuance of all on-chain memes is actually a game of attention.

In plain terms, it's because of a (seemingly) worth paying attention to thing, someone intentionally or unintentionally issued a token.

This thing can be about celebrities, culture, meme, drama, memes or anything you can imagine.

So essentially, you are actually looking at a foreign version of "Weibo" (X), you need to have a gossipy mindset, and bet on the gossip (Pump.fun).

So the question is, with so much gossip, how can we discover the gossip worth watching earlier?

Social media can put on a show, but the flow of money can't fool people.

Taking my discovery of GOAT as an example:

First of all, I have already been unconsciously collecting the addresses of so-called "smart money" from various data bloggers, researchers and social media recommendations in my daily work, and have also added some so-called "smart money" alarm Bots.

My expectation is not that they are smart and honest enough, but to find hot spots for my daily editing work.

But one thing I'm pretty sure about - if the multiple addresses and Bots you're monitoring are all saying that XX bought XX coins, then at least in the (super) short term, it has the potential to become a writing topic.

In other words, whether it's a deliberate conspiracy or a keen sense of smell, these people have already helped you pre-select the subject matter, at least there's something you can talk about, something that can attract people's attention.

So following this logic, I found that on the 11th, a large number of addresses were buying GOAT, and the frequency and amount were quite large.

With the instinct of an editor, I felt that there might be a potential hot topic here, so I searched for the contract address of GOAT on X.

The search results were full of a lot of pump information, but there were also some treasures.

At the time, there was almost no introduction to GOAT and the Truth Terminal, the only valuable search result related to the token contract address was this article:

Until now, this article link has only about 5,000 views, which is not a lot, but the title almost immediately hit my instinct:

Marc Andreessen, gave a $50,000 Bitcoin to an AI Bot.

Even if you don't trade coins, if you're in the crypto industry, just seeing this news would find it interesting and have a strong motivation to understand this event, which became the initial trigger for me to understand GOAT.

So the initial logic of discovering GOAT is:

Capital flow changes - social media search - find valuable information - satisfy curiosity - interpret information.

With my half-baked English skills and the help of GPT, I quickly read through this report and also found the "Truth Terminal" account behind GOAT; and in the remaining time, I quickly went through every post made by the Truth Terminal in chronological order.

At this point, I didn't have enough evidence and knowledge reserves to confirm that it was an AI Bot and not a person pretending, but its nonsense made me feel there was a possibility of hype:

Neurotic, half-intelligent half-philosophical, claiming to issue coins...

A (self-proclaimed) AI Bot issuing its own meme coin, this is a first.

Later I read through its conversation with Marc, who did indeed send Bitcoin to the Bot. Combined with the "soft endorsement" from a16z founder, I vaguely felt this event would be a hit.

So I thought this should be a good topic, and quickly wrote the initial article introducing GOAT.

(《Are AI Bots Issuing Meme Coins Now? A Quick Look at a16z's Investment, the Meme Coin GOAT Issued by a Bot》)

According to feedback from colleagues, some Alpha groups also shared this article afterwards, providing them with an information source for discovering Alpha; but my intention was not to speculate, but to quickly discover hot spots and write articles.

This may also be the dividend of working in the crypto industry, but the prerequisite is that you have to have a gossipy heart and a routine work mode.

The subsequent events then followed naturally, I made a small cognitive bet and got 1 SOL, but I didn't expect GOAT to become so hot that it would surge to the top 100 in crypto market cap.

So in retrospect, "getting ahead" may not be entirely accidental, but a combination of information and tool utilization.

And if you're always eating second-hand information, then the fun and odds will obviously decrease.

Different practitioners in the industry have different ways of utilizing and obtaining information; as an editor, our way of obtaining may be the most in line with ordinary people - the tools are public, the search is public, the monitoring is free, and you can get these in your own way.

Moreover, I also need to spend time writing things down, an ordinary player can completely rush first without writing anything under the same information density.

Of course, it's also possible to rush and end up with nothing, so I've always emphasized "spend more time expressing, bet less cost" in any meme that hasn't taken off, which is determined by the nature and rhythm of my work.

You need to have a veteran-like sensitivity

You may ask, I don't have such luck, by the time I want to get on the bus, the price has already gone up a lot, what do I do?

In fact, from the launch of GOAT to now, it's been about 15 days, half a month, and there's quite a big window period, you don't necessarily have to bet everything on GOAT;

there are many other opportunities to dig during the window period.

But the prerequisite is that you need to have a veteran-like sensitivity.

What is a veteran? We can take Pump.fun as an example.

For example, when Coinbase CEO Brian posted about his wedding and shared a sweet photo of the two of them, Pump.fun replied in a greasy yet precise way under the post:

"Congratulations to you, the dog in the photo looks good, what's its name? (Asking for research purposes)"

Obviously, Pump.fun has sensitively felt that issuing a coin on this dog could be a good choice.

This is a kind of veteran-like sensitivity in the circle, very irreverent but right on the money, everything is an opportunity for asset speculation.

Coming back to the GOAT target, as an editor, I personally think there are at least 3 sensitive opportunities accompanying the evolution of the event life cycle:

1. When the coin is just launched, identify whether the narrative and theme are worth investing in, and write an introduction article about the GOAT;
2. When the coin starts to rise, identify whether there are similar concepts like Dragon 2 and copycat, but with more unique narratives, and write an introduction to the copycat;
3. When the coin goes to the moon, identify whether smart money and large funds are still flowing out, observe what successful people have invested in, and write an analysis report;

So GOAT is a clear line, and there are several hidden lines inside that can be explored, and you can still find a lot of Beta opportunities when the wind is still there.

And because the entire crypto industry is an extremely compressed "venture capital circle" in terms of time and space, the time window given to you will not be very long, but within the same time period, there may be a dense opportunity, which requires you to constantly strengthen your sensitivity and increase your information density to maximize your benefits in favorable times.

Finally, we hope that the unexpected joy of GOAT is a good start, which can help everyone understand the fresh changes and frontier trends in the industry, and identify and discover more opportunities.

This is both a responsibility and a bit of a purity in this industry to "do no evil".

* Risk Warning: MEME has no actual value support and is greatly affected by market sentiment. Most (over 99%) MEME are PVP, and will eventually go to zero. This article is only for sharing personal experience and does not constitute any investment advice.