Conversation with 0xWizard: How to seize the next 500 billion-dollar memes

Interview: Arain, ChainCatcher Guest: 0xWizard Compiled by: Arain, ChainCatcher 0xWizard is a crypto KOL with nearly 200,000 followers on X, known as the "Meme Wizard". Meme can be said to be a main theme running through this bull market cycle, although some people still find it difficult to accept emotionally. "Bravely participate in the second wave of opportunities" is the tenet of 0xWizard. Based on the bottom-up market recognition and his own reflections on the underlying reasons, he believes that although the bull market has already begun, on-chain Meme has just begun. "In the future, there may be another 500 Memes worth $100 million, but it will be difficult to see another $50 billion asset," 0xWizard said in an interview with ChainCatcher. However, the primary and secondary market plays of Meme are completely different, and for some high-valued Meme projects about to enter the secondary market, he suggests observing them first before investing. In the interview, 0xWizard also shared his methodologies for capturing new tracks and new narratives, including the "Three Laws of the Bull Market Engine" and the essence of the track, and discussed several popular AI Memes and his Meme investment experience. Product background makes me better at new narrative tracks and primary-secondary market investments ChainCatcher: What did you do before entering the crypto world? 0xWizard: I worked as a product manager at an internet company, involved in the design of B-end and C-end products. Later, I started my own business and did internet-related products. In 2017, I noticed that the emerging field of cryptocurrency was showing a unique development trend, and some of my friends were also discussing related topics. Combined with my own interest and optimism about its development potential, I officially entered the crypto world. Due to my past work experience, I am better at judging new tracks and new narratives, as well as primary-secondary market investments. I feel that the choice and inclination of tracks is essentially the same as making internet products. However, it's not about simply applying the previous product thinking to crypto investment, but there are many common points. For example, when making products, you need to see if users really need it, not just subjectively feel it's good, and can't fall into the trap of top-down empty imagination in design. You need to see if the market accepts it. It's the same in the crypto world - the key to judging whether a new track or project is viable is to see the degree of market acceptance. Like the AI track, there are many projects valued at over $100 million in the primary and secondary markets, which is the market actually recognizing it as a trend. So in my investment, I tend to first understand and observe the real choices of the market. ChainCatcher: Please share your most successful and most failed investment in the cryptocurrency world. 0xWizard: I have quite a few successful investment cases. When I just entered the industry, I played on-chain games and algorithmic stablecoins, and had about 100x returns in about a month. Later, I participated in projects like ORDI, with about 10x returns on large capital investments, and even close to 100x returns on projects like ACT. Major setbacks are very impressive. Therefore, I strongly advise everyone to avoid leveraging in the crypto world, whether it's contract leverage or ordinary leverage. Leverage is the source of the major setbacks I've encountered. Sometimes the greedy side of human nature comes out, or you can't bear the profit retracement, always wanting to quickly recoup the losses, which will prompt you to use leverage or do contract trading. Every detour may be a necessary experience for investors. It is only by going through this ups and downs, life and death process that you can truly understand what should and should not be done in investment. ChainCatcher: Some tracks may be pseudo-propositions. What are your main criteria for judging tracks? 0xWizard: On the one hand, it is crucial to look at the market's bottom-up recognition. As I mentioned before, it's not enough to just subjectively imagine that a certain track is good, you have to look at the real market response. For example, the AI track has spawned many projects valued at over $100 million in both the primary and secondary markets, which is the market's real recognition that it is a trend, so it is likely worth paying attention to. On the other hand, you also need to think about the most fundamental reasons behind the track. For example, what is the crypto world really doing, and what are the most successful elements at the bottom? I have summarized a few "axioms" for judging, which I have summarized as the "Three Laws of the Bull Market Engine": "Old technology, new gameplay": The old saying goes "long slope, thick snow", looking at whether the technology has enough accumulated foundation, like on-chain assets actually rely on the advantages accumulated by previous infrastructures like DeFi. "New track, new hope": If it's a completely new concept, the market's ceiling for valuation will be higher, just like the metaverse concept before, even if the product may not be very qualified by traditional internet standards, but because it puts forward a new trend and new hope, it can also reach a very high market value during the bull market, such as SAND and other projects in the 2020-2021 bull market. "Batch generation of new assets": A single profitable asset is difficult to form a powerful attraction, only when numerous related assets can all make profits, will it attract more people to participate. Like different on-chain projects can all make profits for investors. By comprehensively considering the bottom-up market recognition and the analysis of the underlying reasons, the judgment of the track is unlikely to go wrong, even if there are occasional setbacks, it is only temporary situations on small branches, and will not affect the judgment of the overall track trend. ChainCatcher: You just mentioned the "most fundamental reasons", do these fundamental reasons all point to the same place? 0xWizard: The answer to this question lies in what the cryptocurrency is really doing. I think it is mainly doing the following things, because it does them "10 times better" - there is a startup methodology in Silicon Valley that when something is 10 times better than others, people have reason to adopt it, and then it can achieve great success. First, asset issuance. In traditional industries, asset issuance faces many legal, compliance and procedural problems, and the difficulty is extremely high. For example, in China, doing asset-related affairs is easy to involve illegal areas, and even with the New Third Board and Nasdaq, it is still very difficult to transform enterprises into assets. While in the crypto world, asset issuance is extremely convenient, much faster than traditional industries, and all kinds of strange things can be quickly transformed into assets, although there may be a lot of junk assets, but this rapid asset issuance capability has brought the native vitality of the crypto world, from ICO to DeFi, NFT, on-chain assets, etc., are all manifestations of asset issuance. Second, regulatory arbitrage. I remember there was a very interesting project in Nigeria's Web3 project. Nigerians buy shopping cards in the US through Crypto and send them back to their families in Nigeria, although the handling fees are as high as 10-20 points, they are still willing to do so, because Crypto provides a way to bypass Nigeria's foreign exchange controls. Third, speculation-driven. Speculation is an important part of the native demand of the crypto world, similar to the stock market industry, speculation is a neutral word in the crypto world. The crypto world has formed a 24-hour global flowing casino, where people are constantly speculating, such as pumping on-chain memes, leveraging (R) investments, and POS based on Ethereum, all of which serve speculation. DeFi's TVL and transaction fees grew rapidly in the last bull market, but declined in the bear market, indicating that what is really happening in the crypto world is more around speculative demand, rather than the previous expectation of changing the world and moving traditional financial assets to the chain. The revenue scale of the zero-sum game in the crypto business model is huge (such as BI's revenue approaching the billion level), which also indicates the dominant position of speculation in the crypto world. The future may have 500 $100 million Memes, and AI Memes should be the focus ChainCatcher: You mentioned earlier that Meme has become a new main theme in this bull market. What are your expectations for the primary and secondary markets? 0xWizard: From the primary market perspective, I think there will be more and more Meme projects in the future, and the total market value may reach a very high level. As I said, in the future, there may be another 500 Memes worth $100 million, but it will be difficult to see another $50 billion asset like Dogecoin. The reason is that the primary and secondary market plays of Meme are completely different. In the primary market, Meme projects can be quickly launched, and the market is very receptive to them, especially when they are combined with new narratives like AI. So the primary market will see a lot of new Meme projects emerge, and their total market value may reach a very high level. But in the secondary market, the situation is different. Many high-valued Meme projects will enter the secondary market, and their performance will be more dependent on their actual commercial value and user stickiness, rather than just hype and speculation. So for some high-valued Meme projects about to enter the secondary market, I would suggest observing them first before investing, rather than blindly following the trend. You need to carefully analyze their commercial value, user base, and long-term development potential. Only those Meme projects with real commercial value and user stickiness will be able to maintain high valuations in the secondary market. In addition, I think AI Meme is a track worth focusing on in the future. The combination of AI and Meme can create new narratives and imagination space, which is very attractive to the market. We've already seen some successful examples, like Bored Ape Yacht Club's AI-generated Meme avatars. So I believe AI Meme will be an important direction for the development of Meme in the future.

Here is the English translation of the text, with the specified terms translated as requested:

0xWizard: From the perspective of the secondary market, the Meme market will definitely have peaks and troughs, basically following the overall market trend. It's actually very difficult to accurately predict the specific ups and downs. I've had a lot of prediction mistakes before, like I originally thought Meme should see an upswing first, but in reality, some like XRP, based on the previous cycle, usually see an upswing at the end of the market, but this time it started the upswing right after Trump's election.

However, one thing that can be determined is that it will definitely see an upswing, and then most likely a decline, and the decline may reach 80% or even 90%, which is a relatively common situation. During the upswing, some Meme coins may see their market cap reach tens of billions of dollars, or even over a hundred billion dollars.

From the primary market perspective, I think the Meme market is not affected by bull or bear markets, it will always exist. Even before a bull market, we can see Meme projects with market caps of several hundred million dollars or even over a billion dollars emerging. It has its own small cycles, but it won't have the obvious bull and bear cycles like the overall market. It just may perform more crazily during bull markets. In the future, there may even be 500 Meme projects with market caps over a billion dollars. Even if individual project market caps are not particularly high, they may be in the tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars range, and in terms of on-chain carrying capacity, Meme projects with market caps between 1-2 billion dollars are very likely to emerge, as is already happening on different chains like Solana and Base.

Due to the limited on-chain Meme market cap space, if the price is relatively high before listing, it is recommended to wait for it to flow into the secondary market and adjust the price before buying, as the valuation space in the secondary market is larger, and the high valuation in the primary market may be difficult to sustain due to lack of liquidity.

ChainCatcher: Why have you been constantly promoting AI Meme?

0xWizard: First of all, crypto investment relies on the power of imagination. The assets that have been hyped up in the crypto market before all had sufficient imagination. Like the previous DeFi, the narrative was a revolution in traditional finance, and there were also the concepts of Non-Fungible Token and Metaverse, claiming that everyone will live in the virtual world in the future. These stories were particularly imaginative. But now, people basically understand NFT, and the Metaverse that even Facebook itself hasn't figured out, and for DeFi to be implemented, it needs to provide actual data. I think the most imaginative thing in the crypto market right now is AI, and it's hard for other things to have the same appeal.

Secondly, AI has actual value. Just like DeFi has real transactions happening and the TVL (Total Value Locked) data reflects its value, AI is the same. Some AI agent projects have already generated revenue, such as Virtuals; many AI projects are being widely used, such as ai16z; some AI projects already have considerable traffic, like the Meme projects ACT and GOAT. Even some AI agents have become better knowledge aggregators than many human-made ones, integrating data libraries to serve everyone - this is actually a productivity-level improvement, not just empty slogans, it's tangible and can bring changes to the crypto industry.

Therefore, AI in the crypto market has imagination and can also be implemented, and the implemented part can further drive more applications to be implemented. Based on these, I think AI is the biggest trend in the crypto industry in 2025, without a doubt, and other trends are not on the same level compared to it.

ChainCatcher: You've mentioned the ACT project's ecosystem several times. Can you share your unique understanding of it?

0xWizard: ACT has a relatively unique ecosystem position. It is a Meme token that emerged at a specific time, representing the future concept of AI. What it is driving, like providing support to some AI agents to enable them to do more experiments and innovations, and also aggregating them to build platforms like ACT swap, where people can interact with them in a tokenized way by inputting prompt commands, this whole process is a very interesting manifestation of the integration of AI, Crypto, and social media, which is a very imaginative form of AI development in this regard.

Moreover, ACT is currently the only AI Meme project that has been listed on major centralized exchanges, so its advantages are more obvious. Even if other AI Meme projects like GOAT, ai16z, and Virtuals are also listed on secondary exchanges in the future, I think ACT will still be one of the most important targets. After all, in this circle, if everyone develops together, gets recognized by the market, and obtains more liquidity together, the overall performance will be better, just like the saying "the fast traveler goes alone, but the far traveler goes with others". So in summary, ACT has a unique position and importance in the AI Meme field.

ChainCatcher: In addition to ACT, are there any other projects in the AI Meme track that you are particularly optimistic about that you can share?

0xWizard: GOAT is a project that sparked the early heat of this track and has already formed a certain consensus, and people are quite recognized for it. There are also platform projects like ai16z and Virtuals, which have a large number of AI agents using them for production and other operations, and they are also worth paying attention to.

The advantage of platform projects is the network effect. Once they form scale and influence, it will be relatively difficult for others to challenge them. Other pure AI agent projects will face more intense competition, faster iteration speed, and relatively lower moats.

So if you want to make a relatively stable investment, projects like ACT, GOAT, ai16z, and Virtuals, which are platform-type projects, will be relatively good options to consider.

The Difference Between Primary and Secondary Market Meme Plays is Huge, Ordinary Investors are Not Suitable for Hot Spot Trading

ChainCatcher: When participating in investing in Meme in the primary and secondary markets, what are the different strategies that need to be adopted? Can you share your methodology?

0xWizard: In the primary market, the focus should be on the market cap situation. You need to judge based on experience at what market cap level it is appropriate to participate, and what stage to participate in. For example, if a valuable target drops from over 100 million market cap to 25-30 million, a decline of about 80%, and it fits your investment expectations and "hitting zone", you can consider buying a small position. The process of accumulating chips in the primary market is relatively fast, it may only take a few days or a week, as long as the big players don't sell out, there is the possibility of an upswing afterwards, and they will coordinate with the narrative and community heat to push for a second upswing. Even if it declines after the upswing, it may start up again later.

In the secondary market, you must follow the logic of chip distribution. Investors need to learn the trading methods of the secondary market, such as Wyckoff theory and other technical analysis methods. You don't necessarily have to be an expert, but you can't be completely ignorant. Otherwise, you will panic due to price fluctuations and not understand the reasons behind them. The secondary market has a process of chip accumulation, the accumulation stage, and after that, it will enter the distribution stage for the upswing.

In addition, the secondary market is highly focused on the hype of new assets and new concepts. Taking the AI track as an example, after a large number of AI agent projects emerged, targets like ACT are likely to see a violent upswing in the secondary market in the future, considering various factors. Compared to projects that are already close to a billion-dollar market cap like Virtuals and ai16z, their primary market carrying capacity is limited, and the space and significance for them to double again in the secondary market is relatively small, so you need to comprehensively consider these factors to understand and grasp the investment logic of the secondary market.

ChainCatcher: You mentioned that investors should learn to distinguish potential targets and hot spot trading. What indicators can help us distinguish the two?

0xWizard: I think we can observe and judge from the following aspects.

First is the narrative and community status of the target itself. On the narrative level, for example, some AI-related projects have innovative AI-crypto interaction models or represent unique trends, such narratives are relatively outstanding. On the community level, you need to pay attention to whether there are loyal fans who continue to build the community and engage in secondary creation daily on various platforms, even when the price is declining. At the same time, the community cannot be limited to Chinese or English communities alone, both Chinese and English communities need to be active, so that their future development potential will be higher. Narrative and community can be seen as one of the basic elements for judgment.

Here is the English translation of the text, with the terms in <> retained and not translated: Next is the capital aspect. It is necessary to pay attention to the chip situation, judge whether the big players have already taken profits and handed over the chips to the big players. Some chip analysis methods can be used, such as checking whether the front row is all loss-making big players. If so, the target may be difficult to rise again. If the big players still hold a large number of unmoving chips, it indicates that they have the motivation to continue to collect chips and carry out a second pull-up operation. By comprehensively considering the trends mentioned earlier, the community status, and the chip and capital situation in the later part, one can roughly judge whether a target is a potential target. In general, the hot spot plate is more suitable for "P-small generals" who are more professional in on-chain gaming, have the energy to participate in the early stage, and can enter the market with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of US dollars and make a profit by cashing out when it rises to a certain extent. They are good at participating in the first wave of trends from the internal plate to the initial heat. However, for most ordinary investors, it is recommended to focus more on and participate in potential targets, but this needs to be comprehensively judged based on one's own actual situation. ChainCatcher: In your investment process in the circle, you must need to master a lot of information to assist your decision-making. Can you share some of the better sources of information? 0xWizard: The information sources I often use are quite diverse. First, there are data websites like GMGN, which will release daily rankings of popular targets, covering various and other related content. I suggest checking it at least twice a day, recording the new targets that appear, and then observing their subsequent price fluctuations, chip structure changes, and comprehensively judging whether to participate in investment based on their trends and community conditions, which is crucial. Secondly, there are some tools that can push hot , and some that will recommend dozens of relevant information every day. Of course, users need to have the energy to filter and view them on . Furthermore, there are forwarding groups, such as the Alpha group in China, where you can understand the content that people are concerned about and discussing. is also crucial. Follow those who often share insights and participate in various projects in the circle, but you need to filter them yourself and select the tweets of those you think are reliable and valuable for reference. In addition, people can build their own small circles, find like-minded and similar-level people to exchange and discuss together. As the saying goes, "the more people gather firewood, the higher the flame", which can speed up the acquisition of information. In short, by comprehensively using these channels, there will basically be no shortage of information. ChainCatcher: When facing a large amount of information, how do you filter and assist your investment decision-making? 0xWizard: This is indeed a key question. After there is a lot of information, filtering becomes very important. First, you need to judge based on your own investment goals, risk tolerance, and other personal situations. For example, some information may look very tempting, but if the investment risk it corresponds to exceeds your tolerance, you need to be cautious. In terms of the target information obtained, as I mentioned earlier, you need to analyze whether its narrative has innovation and development potential, whether the community is active and cohesive, and pay attention to both the Chinese and English communities, as well as the chip situation on the capital side. You can't just blindly follow what others say is good, you need to have your own logical judgment. When actually applying it, you must understand that investment has risks. Even if you have done a lot of information collection and analysis in the early stage, there may still be mistakes. I suggest that when you first start participating in investment, you can try with a small part of the funds, just treat it as tuition to accumulate experience. As you gradually become familiar with it and have confidence, you can gradually adjust your investment strategy. At the same time, you need to clarify your own investment style, know what type of investment is suitable for you. For example, hot spot plates are more suitable for professional "P-small generals" who have the energy to participate in the early stage, they can profit in the first wave of trends, but ordinary investors may be more suitable to focus on potential targets. However, the final decision still needs to be based on your own actual situation.