Many people aspire to become professional traders, but most traders often lose everything due to losing control of their trading mentality and improper position management. Under the stimulation of the constant fluctuations in profits and losses, many people fall into it and find it difficult to extricate themselves, gradually getting lost in the endless cycle of trading and unable to escape.

But there are still people who make a living from trading. Nachi is the top trader on Binance's total revenue list. As of August 7, 2024, his total revenue from Binance contracts exceeded US$54 million, ranking sixth on the entire site.

There is no doubt that Nachi's trading journey is successful. Many people are curious about his trading system and how he grew from an ordinary investor to a trading master. Recently, BlockBeats conducted an in-depth interview with Nachi to talk about Nachi's own trading growth history, trading philosophy, and his views on the crypto market after the election.

Rise Story

Before becoming a full-time Crypto trader, Nachi was engaged in trading in traditional finance. After witnessing BTC's 25-fold increase in one year in 2017, he decisively resigned from the fund. Soon after, he achieved his first 100-fold goal in the DeFi Summer at the end of 2020, and his assets increased from $100,000 to $10 million. In this cycle, Nachi has successively seized important trading opportunities such as WIF and BONK, holding WIF from $0.22 to $3, making a profit of tens of millions of dollars.

However, even for this top Binance trader, the growth of his assets was not smooth sailing. In May 2021, Nachi experienced a sharp decline in assets during the black swan event in the crypto industry, with total assets retreating by 60% to 70% from the high point. But in the end, Nachi held on to his main positions and set a new high in assets a few months later.

Today, Nachi continues to be active on X to share his real-time views on the market, including but not limited to analysis of the macroeconomic environment, technical analysis, Alpha sharing, etc., and has gained more than 50,000 followers in 6 months.

BlockBeats: Many readers in the Chinese community may not be particularly familiar with the name Nachi. Before we begin, can you briefly introduce yourself? Share some of your work experience before Crypto, and how you came into contact with and entered the Crypto world?

Nachi: My dream has always been to become a full-time trader. After graduation, I worked as a stock derivatives trader in a large bank. However, I found that the reality was very different from what I had imagined. There were no great traders in the team for me to learn from, so I took on different jobs and used all my spare time to trade stocks and accumulate experience.

Until I switched to another job as a fund manager, the work was very busy, but I did not want to sacrifice my trading time after work. To me, my true identity will always be a trader who is passionate about trading and has a keen sense of smell.

Trading is my lifeblood. Even when I am at work or off work, trading is all I can think about. Whether it is trading stocks, commodities, foreign exchange or futures, I will be there wherever there is a good opportunity to make money through trading. So I worked hard day and night, and finally got sick. My eyesight was only 10% of what it used to be. I couldn’t see the words on the computer screen at all. For two years, I could only work on a limited basis. As a result, I lost the trust of my boss, which made me rethink my life.

I began to realize that there was no future in balancing work and trading. My performance at work was not as good as others, and my results in trading were just so-so due to lack of time to focus on research.

After careful consideration, I realized that time should not be wasted. Recalling that BTC soared from $800 to nearly $20,000 in 2017, I intuitively felt that this asset had great potential. So I resolutely decided to resign, combined with years of accumulated trading experience, and believed that this path had unlimited possibilities. So I bravely embarked on the journey of the crypto, trying to fight my way out, and chose the path of a full-time cryptocurrency trader, and it has been six years since then.

BlockBeats: Now, you are the 6th-ranked contract trader on Binance, which means that the probability of users on Binance having the same trading ability and quality as you is only 0.03% of the time. What do you think is the main difference between these 0.03% of the time and most traders? Do they have some common "unique attributes"?

Nachi: Top traders are decisive, emotionally intelligent, experienced, have proper bet control, are picky about trading opportunities, have a plan, do moderate research and analysis, and have a desire and pursuit to constantly improve themselves. Average traders are indecisive, too emotional, trade too much, have improper bet control, and have no plan/a rough plan.

BlockBeats: How did you make your first pot of gold in the Crypto world? When was the first time you experienced a large-scale asset drawdown?

Nachi: I made a fortune from DeFi Summer. I speculated on different DeFi tokens in the early stage. I started investing 100k in mid-2018 and made my first 10 million US dollars at the end of 2020. It felt surreal and unbelievable. It was the most exciting moment in my life.

The first time I experienced an asset drawdown was a week after May 12, 2021. At that time, Ethereum fell by 60%, and my assets also fell by 60% to 70%. I was suddenly under tremendous pressure, like a stone pressing on my heart, but I still firmly believed that the bull market was not over, so I decided to persevere, hold on to my positions, and continue to hold on. As a result, I reached the peak again a few months later.

BlockBeats: Can you share with us the "leap road" of your Crypto asset size? What are the reasons for several important rapid/substantial growths?

Nachi: I started from 100,000 in 2018 and speculated until 2021, with tens of millions of US dollars at the peak. Then I liquidated my position in January 2022, but due to the losses in the FTX incident, my assets retreated a lot. After this cycle started again, I captured many good trading opportunities, and now my assets have surpassed the peak of the previous cycle.

This rapid growth may be due to my in-depth analysis of the market and my ability to predict major trends better than others. At the beginning of 2020, I felt that the funds invested in Crypto could grow more than 100 times, which means that every 10,000 yuan you spend is actually 1 million yuan in the future, and every 100,000 yuan you spend is equivalent to 10 million yuan in the future. Naturally, I entered the frugality mode and the extreme hard work mode, insisting on sacrifice, sacrificing all my own interests, constantly delaying larger consumption, not buying a house, not buying a car, in order to maximize the funds that can be invested in Crypto.

And because of this huge opportunity, I worked much harder than others and discovered major opportunities earlier than others. For example, I invested heavily when the DeFi project valuation was only 10-20M, started paying attention to and buying Solana at $1-2, and exited the market at a relatively appropriate time. It was only at this time that I started to consider consumption.

BlockBeats: What is your most successful deal to date? What is your most regrettable deal?

Nachi: The most successful transaction that made the most money was WIF. The one I regretted the most was AXS. I bought it at a few tenths of a dollar and sold it at 5-6 dollars, missing out on the subsequent increase of dozens of times.

Trading philosophy

In this market, many people make money, but only a few can make stable profits. Nachi believes that the biggest difference between ordinary traders and successful traders is that the former lack clear trading discipline and system, their decisions are often affected by emotions, and they lack the ability to manage positions and control risks. An excellent trader must not only have technical analysis capabilities, but also a certain macro analysis capability, expand his technical field, improve his sensitivity to the timing of opening and closing positions, select opportunities with high winning rates, and reduce the frequency of transactions, so as to achieve more stable profits.

The market is changing rapidly, and each cycle has different trading logic. In this cycle, the performance of Altcoin was far worse than expected, but Nachi outperformed most Altcoin by holding SOL and BTC for a long time. In the "WIF transaction" with a strong narrative background, Nachi also made tens of millions of dollars through his understanding of the Meme community.

Trade decisively, strictly stop profit and stop loss, control the frequency of transactions, avoid emotional operations, and manage positions reasonably. These trading disciplines may seem simple, but to truly achieve them, you need to constantly hone and self-discipline in the market. There is no so-called holy grail in trading. Build your own trading system, actively think about the market from all angles, and expand your own technical expertise. In Nachi's words, "With good timing and good assets, returns will come naturally."

Nachi always seems to make the right decision at the right time, avoiding the pitfalls that most people fall into.

BlockBeats: After entering the world of Crypto, have your trading ideas, strategies, and main battlefields changed? Can you share more?

Nachi: Everything is constantly changing. For example, in the last cycle, when interest rates were zero and money was printed in large quantities, everything soared and it was very easy to make money. I mainly traded DeFi and Layer 1.

This cycle has been operating in a high-interest environment, driven entirely by institutional fund flows from the BTC ETF, but the money earned from the BTC ETF does not flow directly into Altcoin, so Altcoin have been performing far worse than most people expected, but this is actually not difficult to estimate.

This cycle mainly uses the Barbell strategy, and part of it is holding large coins such as BTC and SOL.

The other part is to look for opportunities based on market narrative and my research, mainly around individual DeFi, Meme and AI, but as the market taste changes, I will also make corresponding changes.

BlockBeats Note: Barbell strategy means abandoning the stable average risk and allocating extremely large and extremely small risks. Holding large coins means allocating extremely small risks. Large coins have large market capitalizations and relatively small fluctuations, and rarely have an amplitude of more than 20% in a day; holding small coins means allocating extremely large risks. Small market capitalizations correspond to shallow trading depths and relatively large fluctuations, and may even have an intraday amplitude of more than 50%. Combining the market narrative, the fundamentals of the project, and market sentiment to make relatively short-term trends.

BlockBeats: In today’s Crypto market, what do you think it takes to be a good trader?

Nachi: You need to have macro analysis capabilities, sufficient trading skills and experience, high trading sensitivity, quick and accurate buying, selling and stop-loss, strong risk management capabilities, and a desire and pursuit to continuously improve yourself.

BlockBeats: What do you think are your best trading ideas in the past two years? Which ones were finally executed and got satisfactory returns?

Nachi: WIF, SOL, PENDLE.

BlockBeats: WIF, SOL, and PENDLE can be regarded as the three best trading opportunities this year, and you seized them at the earliest stage. Can you share with us how you discovered these opportunities and how to build trading strategies around them?

Nachi: In investing, when you feel comfortable, it is usually rarely profitable. The best time to enter the market is often when others have not yet considered this to be a great opportunity.

In the WIF transaction, I actually noticed that it was different from other meme coins very early on. Its penetration and popularity were very different from other memes at the time. So I started to observe it from November until February, when I saw that the time was right, I took action. With good timing and good assets, the returns will come naturally.

Many times, many people encounter good coins at the wrong time, which often makes you lose confidence and lose opportunities later.

In the PENDLE transaction, I always felt that Defi is a very important part of Crypto. Unfortunately, there are no fantastic products in this cycle. Until the emergence of Pendle v2, the unique product with good topics, plus its TVL and trading volume have been rising, so I was very confident that it was an undervalued coin.

Pendle’s TVL and trading volume in the past year: Source: DefiLlama

In addition, I really like this kind of product that has been working hard from the last cycle to this cycle. The team's motivation for progress is obviously much higher than other Defi. Buying high-quality coins often brings higher returns than buying cheap coins.

I didn’t have much confidence in SOL at the beginning of this cycle, until Breakpoint 2023, when I learned that Firedancer would completely change Solana’s performance, and then the memecoin craze in November, I realized that Solana was basically the ETH of the previous cycle. From the public’s complaints to the gradual acceptance, and then the MEV economy surprised investors, every step of the way, I saw Solana slowly becoming as popular as ETH in 2021.

So I entered the market decisively because I knew Solana would definitely be one of the major themes of this cycle.

BlockBeats: If you had to choose, which do you think is more important: discovering and judging opportunities or subsequent strategy formulation and execution?

Nachi: Both are equally important, but of course discovering and judging opportunities is more important, because the former is necessary for the latter, but both can be continuously improved and enhanced through actual combat.

BlockBeats: Many KOL traders either set up paid communities or gradually hide their transactions, but you insist on sharing them on social media for free. What is the logic and thinking behind this?

Nachi: I do everything out of interest. I think it’s fun to open this account to share my views and insights on the market, which can help people and see the growth of followers. If one day I lose interest and enthusiasm in this matter, I may stop.

BlockBeats: Many people inside and outside the circle call buying and selling Crypto gambling. In your opinion, what is the main or most essential difference between "gambling of ordinary Crypto users" and "gambling of top Crypto traders"?

Nachi: The biggest difference is the technical differences and the frequency of actions. A top trader values ​​each transaction based on risk and reward, and will only buy or sell short when the risk-reward ratio is high. Generally, they are very patient and will definitely not take action frequently, but they will be very decisive when they take action.

BlockBeats: In your opinion, what are the best strategies to help people survive in the Crypto world for a long time?

Nachi: If you are not good at trading, it is suitable to hold BTC and some coins with huge moats for a long time. Don't do leverage. As long as you don't do leverage and your funds are safe, time will become your good friend. Even if you hold BTC for a long time and don't trade, everyone has a great chance to get rich or at least improve their lives.

Buying in panic and selling when the crowd is surging is always the best strategy. Although it is difficult for ordinary people to do it, they should try hard. The low point of every major event is produced at the most panic time. To be able to go against human nature, as long as it is a good currency or asset, buying when no one dares to buy is always the best strategy.

Outlook on the market outlook

From January 2023 to March 2024, the cryptocurrency market has been operating in a high-interest environment. With the narrative of BTC ETF and expected interest rate cuts, BTC has continued to accelerate its rise, resonating with the Nasdaq index and continuously hitting new highs. In this cycle, the yields of most traditional value coins did not outperform BTC. Instead, the fully circulated Meme coins became the object of everyone's speculation.

On September 19, 2024, the US Federal Reserve announced its interest rate decision, and the expected rate cut was realized. BTC ushered in a small-scale rise. With the implementation of the rate cut, a large amount of capital liquidity has been released. In the traditional sense, risky financial products will have a positive impact on the capital side. From a larger time dimension, what will be the trend of Crypto? After VC coins/value coins are spurned by everyone, will the project parties change?

As a professional trader, Nachi believes that after the interest rate cut, a large amount of capital liquidity will be attracted. Although VC coins/value coins are no longer favored by retail investors, they will also be the necessary capital allocation objects of players with large capital. When large funds begin to re-enter the market, a small part of them may have huge appreciation potential. With the cyclical narrative and market pull, retail investors will forget their previous hatred and re-recognize the value of VC coins.

BlockBeats: This round of Crypto cycle is called "Demystified Bull". VC coins/value coins have lost their buyers, various crypto narratives have lost their vitality, and everyone is addicted to the PVP carnival of meme coins. In addition to the lack of liquidity inside and outside the market, what other major factors do you think are there? From your trader's perspective, how will the Crypto market develop next? When will it get better?

Nachi: The most important factor is that most people in the crypto want to make quick money. VC coins are overvalued. Once listed, retail investors have no room to make money and will be severely cut. After being cut several times, will anyone be willing to be cut by highly valued projects again?

Moreover, no retail investor wants to spend a long time to understand the technology of public chains and the applicability of AI projects. The harder it is to understand a project, the less people want to understand it. Meme coin is the easiest to understand and no VC needs to unlock it, which is exactly what the market likes. For the market to improve, the central bank needs to cut interest rates and introduce a large amount of liquidity.

BlockBeats: For large players, VC coins/value coins are "must play", but combined with the current market's understanding and views on VC coins, do you think the logic and direction of traditional coin speculation have undergone significant changes? What is the most important criterion for judging trading/investment opportunities now? If you can only choose one VC coin, what would you buy?

Nachi: As I said before, the low point of asset prices often occurs at the most panic time. To be honest, there are too many VC coins and their valuations are too high. With insufficient market funds, retail investors have already lost a lot of money because of them in the early stage of the bull market, so I understand why retail investors are no longer attached to VC coins. However, when retail investors spurn VC coins, it means that they may have huge appreciation potential.

When big funds start to re-enter the market, and some good VC coins show strong resilience, coupled with the narrative of pulling up the market and catering to the cycle, retail investors will probably forget all their previous hatred and re-enter the market. As traders, when the public has not entered the market, it is a good opportunity for us to buy.

Among the studies, I prefer SUI.

SUI has higher performance than Solana. Although it does not have the same number of users as Solana at this stage, in the foreseeable future, SUI will be considered a threatening competitor by the public. The development of SUI in Gamefi is also very exciting.

BlockBeats: In your opinion, is the current Crypto market going through a "garbage time in the history of cryptocurrencies"? At this stage, what should an ordinary Crypto investor/trader do or pay attention to?

Nachi: We are going through an adjustment period now, and people’s hearts are a little fragile. It will go down in the short term, but it also means that good opportunities will appear.

Pay attention to the macro environment and the strength of Bitcoin relative to the Nasdaq Index and gold. Do more research and analysis on Altcoin and wait for opportunities to build positions. September to November, when the market undergoes a deep adjustment, is a good time to build positions.

BlockBeats: Many people are beginning to believe in the new narrative that a big bull market will come in 2025. Do you think the market will develop as everyone expects?

Nachi: I think the real bull market will not officially begin until the fourth quarter of this year. As long as the economies of major countries do not fall into recession, the fourth quarter should be a good time for Altcoin to do well, but we still need to be very picky in choosing the best Altcoin.

BlockBeats: So for you personally, what is the most promising narrative in this cycle?

Nachi: We believe that the main themes of this cycle are meme and AI, mainly meme. The meme of this cycle is equivalent to DeFi in the previous cycle.

The first reason is that the VC coins in this cycle are overvalued, and the second reason is that their technology is more complex than L1 in the previous cycle. It is difficult for retail investors to understand the generation technology of these projects. However, the coin issuance mechanism of meme is relatively fair, and many of them are Fair Launch. Retail investors can directly buy the meme tokens of any MEME community they like, become a member of the community, and enjoy the fun of being in the community.

These reasons make meme particularly prominent in this cycle and become the main theme. You can see that the most famous new KOLs in this cycle, such as Ansem and Murad, are MEME KOLs, which is another important indicator. In addition, Solana, the strongest public chain in this cycle, is so successful mainly because of the outbreak of MEME. In addition to MEME, the second important sector is AI.

BlockBeats: What are the reasons for being optimistic about Crypto AI?

Nachi: AI is a very important topic. We can see that the stock that has risen the most in the US stock market is NVDA, and AI-related stocks such as Microsoft and Google have also risen rapidly. Basically, the explosion of the entire US stock market in the past two years has mainly come from AI.

I believe this is not just the case in the US stock market, but also in the crypto market. The problem is that people still don’t know which one is the NVDA or Microsoft in Crypto. In fact, some stocks have been hyped up, but I think there is still a lot of room for growth.

Most importantly, I think the AI ​​sector has basically no ceiling, because AI can create many things that people can't imagine, and push productivity very high. So the market actually has no idea about the valuation of AI coins. Will it surpass Solana? It's hard for us to say. But this uncertainty is what Crypto traders like most. We don't know what its peak will be, one billion, ten billion or one hundred billion. You and I can't be sure.

In addition, the AI ​​sector has special significance in the Crypto world, because AI and Crypto have great synergy. In the traditional financial world, only large companies and institutions can invest in AI, and small companies simply do not have the resources to compete with them.

But in the world of Crypto, everyone is talking about decentralization. Everyone can contribute their resources, which used to be GPU computing power, but now may include coding or programming capabilities. When these resources are integrated to a certain level, it is possible to compete with large companies and institutions. So we are very confident that when capital returns to the crypto market, many AI talents will enter Crypto and accelerate its development.

In the AI ​​sector, one of the ones I am particularly optimistic about is TAO. I believe that many people say that AI coins should be concentrated on Bittensor. Because retail investors like public chains the most, and TAO is obviously an "AI public chain." Of course, we also know that TAO has many development plans behind it at the beginning of next year, which may push the price of TAO to a peak.

In addition, their ecosystem is also very good, and the reward mechanism also allows builders to get a lot of rewards, promoting more good Subnet AI models to develop on Bittensor. Of course, we are very optimistic about the entire AI sector, because the industry has not yet developed a complete gameplay and new imagination space.

BlockBeats: You mentioned meme narrative just now. In the meme sector, what is your most promising target?

Nachi: I think after the meme craze of the previous period, the market is beginning to look for some new ways to play with memes. One of the hot spots that I am most optimistic about is AI meme.

As I just said, AI and meme are the main themes of this cycle. Everyone's eager anticipation for the future of AI technology coupled with the speculative nature of meme makes AI meme a sought-after asset.

The speculation of AI meme has accelerated the development of AI Crypto and filled this sector with infinite imagination. In the past, many fund managers avoided memes because it was difficult for them to explain to LPs why they bought coins representing different animals.

Now, they can finally find some coins that they think are reasonable. The first choice is of course the leader GOAT. It is the first coin that triggered the AI ​​meme craze and is also the AI ​​meme with the best liquidity. Although other AI meme coins have also developed very fast, the leading position is often difficult to be replaced.

The GOAT at this moment is like the YFI at that time, and I believe that the next few months will be the most glorious time for GOAT.

BlockBeats: Recently, the crypto market has improved. What are your expectations for BTC's future performance?

Nachi: I estimate that Bitcoin can reach the range of $85,000 to $95,000 this year. The timing depends on the results of the US election. If Trump is elected, I think Bitcoin will reach this target range soon, but if Harris is elected, it may take a little longer, maybe around the end of December.

My basic target price for Bitcoin next year is $120,000, which I estimate will be reached in the first or second quarter of next year. Of course, how far Bitcoin can go depends on the market situation, which is difficult to estimate accurately. If the market liquidity is particularly good at that time, it is possible to rise to $120,000 or even higher, but I think it is more stable to set the basic target at $120,000.

BlockBeats: It only took you about a week to go from the top 10 on Binance to the top 6. Do you want to challenge No. 1? How long do you think it will take to achieve this goal?

Nachi: The profit of No.1 is too exaggerated. It is probably a company as rich as a country. I just need to continue to do my best. It is not easy to be among the top 10 and maintain it for a long time.