@yuyue_chris is an active Altcoin investor and trader in the Web3 field. From an initial capital of 3,000 yuan in 2022, she has now become a professional trader, relying on her keen market insight and a continuous learning attitude, transforming from a novice to an OG within two years. She is currently an important member of several top Chinese crypto communities and also operates her own community.
OKX specially invited her as a guest speaker for the "OKX's Friends" series to share her trading insights and in-depth thoughts on the Meme track, hoping to inspire the audience.
The "OKX's Friends" series is a special column planned by OKX, hosted by OKX's official community ambassador Mercy (@Mercy_okx), aiming to uncover the stories, industry insights, and lessons learned from KOLs with different backgrounds, for new users to learn and reference.
I. The Crypto Journey from Scratch
Mercy (@Mercy_okx): Can you share with us how you entered the crypto field?
Yuyue (@yuyue_chris): I joined the crypto space in March 2022, during the bear-bull transition period. As a business student, I initially wanted to find an internship and started writing some Web3 investment research. I truly entered the space when I saw a friend's post about a trading platform's contract, and asked "What's this app?", then received an affiliate link. At that time, I only had 3-5,000 yuan in capital, but it was quickly wiped out by a 20x leveraged contract, leaving only a little ETH on-chain. I didn't dare tell my parents that I had lost all my living expenses, so I had to find another way.
Mercy: What made you persist? Which communities had the greatest impact on you?
Yuyue: The turning point came with the Nation3 airdrop. I saw many KOLs on Twitter forwarding it and asking people to leave their ENS addresses. I followed and actually received the airdrop. This made me realize that I must get positive feedback, otherwise it would be difficult to persist in the face of constant losses. After that, I started iterating my information sources, joining more communities, and getting to know more people, actively reviewing every opportunity.
Regarding communities, one is the scriptdotmoney Robot DAO, which is the Huangpu Military Academy of top Chinese communities, producing many current community leaders, such as Laser Cat. Another is the 321 DAO of Zishi, which is also a Huangpu Military Academy for Chinese KOLs, where I learned a lot. The last one is Feng Mi's 33 DAO, which has evolved from an airdrop organizer into an elite organization integrating investment research, execution, and investment, and Feng Mi's words inspired me greatly: "The most important thing for an organization is to have cohesion internally and influence externally."
Mercy: How did the transformation from an early Alpha Hunter to an investor and professional trader happen?
Yuyue: In the early days as an Alpha Hunter, I mainly shared various arbitrage and airdrop opportunities. Understanding the rules is important, just like studying law, you have to understand all the terms to find the loopholes. And the loopholes often contain the best profit opportunities. For example, the recent Penguin airdrop, half a year ago I was one of the few bloggers in the Chinese-speaking area who publicly recommended doing the Penguin Layer Zero cross-chain task, and I was able to earn nearly $10,000 from the airdrop, with very little capital loss. At that time, I was observing new projects every day, to the extent that many people's impression of me was "I was already following this project when it had so few followers".
But as the capital grew, the trading strategy also evolved. Now in my offensive strategy, I mainly use large positions in BTC and ETH as the base, using them as collateral for contracts, but keeping the leverage below 3x. I also invest in the primary market, as I used to work at IDG and am more familiar with the primary market.
II. In-depth Insights into the Meme Track
Mercy: How do you view the big outbreak of Memecoins in this bull market?
Yuyue: This needs to be seen from the overall narrative shift in the crypto space. I think there are now two main logic lines: the asset line and the speculation line. The asset line revolves around BTC, stablecoins, and other assets with real stable value; the speculation line is mainly Meme, representing a kind of universal speculative carnival. When BTC hits new highs, these two lines intertwine, forming the current prosperity.
From the earliest public chains, to DeFi, GameFi, and then NFT, now is the pump.fun era. The popularization of cryptocurrencies does not require complex DeFi formulas, but rather a more down-to-earth approach. Meme happens to meet this need. And on the asset side, BTC itself, as a kind of non-interest-bearing strong consensus asset, may also be understood as a kind of "meme". However, a large number of new holders choose BTC not only to participate in the consensus, but also to seek asset preservation and even appreciation in the process of resisting real inflation.
Mercy: Why can Meme achieve such deep integration with Gen Z culture?
Yuyue: This is related to the cognitive characteristics of the human brain. People are naturally drawn to novelty and will constantly raise the threshold for the same type of stimuli. Meme provides simple, fast, and rich stimuli, while also dissolving the seriousness of finance, allowing people to develop a "playful" mentality. This is a kind of entertainment-ized finance and financialized gaming. For example, which would the audience be more interested in and addicted to, a 10,000-word project research article or a short and interesting slogan? Obviously the latter has already been validated by hundreds of millions of users in the short video era.
Mercy: The emergence of this round of Pump.fun seems to have become the infrastructure for the Meme supercycle, and now, in addition to Solana, other major ecosystems have also launched their own versions of pump.fun. What changes do you think this high-frequency, fast-paced model will bring?
Yuyue: I think the focus is not on the pump.fun infrastructure itself, but on the broader changes. With the relaxation of regulations, we are seeing a separation between centralized exchanges, ETFs, US stocks, and on-chain landscapes. In the future, more and more people may buy mainstream coins through ETFs, while on-chain will be mainly speculative trading of Meme.
Furthermore, I believe the current regulatory environment is actually more favorable for Meme. You can see that major exchanges have been frequently listing Meme coins recently, which means the compliance risk of Meme itself is relatively small. But it's worth noting that people's freshness for something will eventually fade, so sector rotation will be very fast, whether it's the rotation between DeFi and Meme, between value coins and Meme coins, or even the internal rotation within the Meme sector.
Mercy (@Mercy_okx): Compared to traditional VC projects, what unique advantages do you think Meme projects have?
Yuyue (@yuyue_chris): This is an interesting question. Even for new VC projects, even if they want to launch a serious product or protocol, the team itself must also understand the value and importance of Meme. If they cannot cleverly utilize Meme, in terms of external buyers, except for Trump-concept Altcoins, any other in-circle Altcoins will find it difficult to compete with BTC ETFs, ETH ETFs, and mainstream coins in the long run; in terms of internal buyers, if they cannot cleverly utilize Meme, they will find it difficult to compete with Meme.
I can give a few examples of projects that have done well:
- $AVA uses the cute white-haired loli image to build an organic community for the AI Agent @HoloworldAI
- $MOVE utilizes various Meme promotions for @movementlabsxyz, and the founder himself has the topicality and legendary status of the Gen Z group
- The "unconventional" Meme style of $BERA, where every event is very extravagant and fakechain culture, etc.
Mercy: When screening Meme projects, what aspects do you consider?
Yuyue: I mainly consider three aspects:
The first is the narrative level, which can be divided into grand narratives (politics, economics, AI), small but beautiful cults (specific images or niche cultures), and short-term hot spots.
The second is the token structure. Large-cap projects need to pay attention to the dispersion of tokens, which determines the strength of consensus; but early projects should not be overly dispersed, as this can lead to persistent selling pressure.
The third is the team and community. A strong team and community can create a lasting Meme effect, while a weak team and community will quickly lose momentum.
The third is community building. It is necessary to have high-quality community leaders, preferably long-term diamond-handed, who can continuously recharge the community's faith. If the early community is all flippers, it is difficult to establish long-term value.
III. Advice for Beginners
Mercy: What advice do you have for newcomers who have just entered the crypto space?
Yuyue: First, you need to establish your own information channels, but be wary of information cocoons. I suggest diligently scrolling through Twitter and researching the early movers behind each hot topic. Secondly, do not overly rely on copy-trading tools, as you cannot fully replicate others' positions and timing.
Regarding continuous learning and growth, the key is to obtain positive feedback, even if it's small. From my experience, very few people can get particularly large returns on a single project, it's more of a linear growth process. Explosive wealth growth is often a survivor bias, while linear growth is the prerequisite for exponential growth. Traders need to be aware that this market is always changing, the only constant is to maintain a learning mindset and find your own rhythm and circle. Going it alone is difficult, true growth requires learning from and progressing together in high-quality communities.
IV. Impressions and Suggestions for OKX
Mercy (@Mercy_okx): Please share your impressions of OKX, including your experiences with the products and team interactions.
Yuyue (@yuyue_chris): The core impression OKX has given me is its fast product iteration speed. This is reflected in several aspects: Firstly, the functionality of the CEX system, such as the UI overhaul of the finance section, which, although took some getting used to at first, has resulted in a clearer product logic. Secondly, the Web3 wallet section has been iterated very quickly, with increasingly comprehensive functionality.
Another point is that OKX places great emphasis on user experience and needs, with the team deeply engaged in the community. You often appear in various groups to collect user feedback and can respond quickly, which has left a very good impression on me.
Mercy: Regarding OKX's future development, especially in the integration of CEX and DEX, do you have any suggestions?
Yuyue: Regarding CeDeFi, I think it depends on the specific definition. For example, some exchanges allow the use of interest-bearing stablecoins as contract collateral, which is a feature the exchange module can consider.
I think one thing OKX has done well is clearly distinguishing the on-chain and exchange-internal functionalities. The Web3 wallet section is independent of the exchange system and has been done exceptionally well, with features closely aligned with actual needs. As a professional meme user, I hope to see a faster new feature addition mechanism. Although it's already done very well, for some time-sensitive projects, faster support would be even better.
Particularly worth commending is OKX's performance in multi-chain products, which is unparalleled. Many public chains don't have particularly good native wallets, but OKX's web-based wallet has a great experience on these chains, such as Aptos. I suggest continuing to strengthen this advantage and provide better wallet support for emerging public chains.
Mercy: We are exploring a new feature that allows CEX users to trade DEX tokens and DEX users to trade CEX tokens. What do you think of this direction?
Yuyue: This idea sounds very innovative. This not only allows centralized exchange users to have more choices, but also provides more liquidity for DEXes, making the on-chain trading experience smoother. I look forward to seeing the specific implementation of this feature.
