Original article by Odaily Odaily(@OdailyChina)
Author｜Golem (@web3_golem)
This week, two things attracted the most attention and discussion among Chinese netizens on X (formerly Twitter): Trump's visit to China and the return of Luo Yonghao, one of the first generation of KOLs in the Chinese internet, founder of Smartisan Technology, and the protagonist of the "True Repayment Story".
Luo Yonghao's first post on May 13th upon returning to X
The account (X: @luoyonghao ) was created by Luo Yonghao in April 2009, but he stopped using it after forgetting the password. According to Odaily, the old account was reactivated because Luo Yonghao found the password again .
To spew nonsense from a cesspool—that's probably me.
After recovering his account, Luo Yonghao began an intensive online activity, posting over 110 messages/replies in just three days, as of May 16th. On the X platform, Luo stated that his return was due to the company's overseas business needs, and that he had legally applied for a work VPN. He also released three previous episodes of his video podcast, "Luo Yonghao's Crossroads," on the account, featuring interviews with Cai Kangyong, Li Xiang, and TIM from the film and television industry.
However, "serious work content" accounts for less than 3% of Luo Yonghao's new posts. The majority of the remaining posts are basically Luo Yonghao letting loose, with topics spanning genes, gender, and the crypto, and are mainly replies to netizens.
Platform X has lax management of user speech, which allowed Luo Yonghao's outspoken and confrontational personality to be fully unleashed. Faced with offenses from netizens, Luo Yonghao responded in the same way, as shown in the image below…
These highly "realistic" and aggressive posts instantly boosted the popularity of Luo Yonghao's account, with many netizens saying they "just love watching Lao Luo criticize people." As of May 16, Luo Yonghao's account had gained 250,000 followers in just three days.
However, since Luo Yonghao considers the atmosphere of Simplified Chinese X to be a near-cesspool, why did he choose to swim in it? Was he driven out of other platforms due to unspeakable grievances, was it a genuine prelude to new overseas business, or was it merely a means to build up his account? Only he himself can answer this question.
Of the more than 100 posts, the most dramatic and one that generated further discussion was on May 15th, when Luo Yonghao posted on the X platform, calling out Binance founder CZ and demanding the removal of all Meme coins bearing the same name as "Luo Yonghao".
The “rights protection” incident triggered an “absurd” surge in prices; Lao Luo neither understands nor wants to understand the crypto.
In the crypto, most Meme coins are purely attention-grabbing tools. Over time, this has developed into a typical industrialized practice: regardless of political news, entertainment developments, technological advancements, or social hot topics, as long as they can attract public attention, the "coin issuing group" will issue the relevant Meme coin on the blockchain as soon as possible, and speculators will come to speculate and compete to see who can "run away the fastest".
The return of one of the most well-known KOLs on the Chinese internet to X is a perfect example of the "attention economy." Almost simultaneously, numerous memes with the same name appeared on the BSC chain (Odaily note: a Binance-affiliated public chain). To insiders, this is perfectly normal. But who is Luo Yonghao? How could he tolerate these people exploiting his influence for "fraud"?
So, at 8:30 pm on May 15, at the suggestion of netizens , Luo Yonghao called out Binance founder CZ on the X platform, demanding that he remove all Meme coins with the same name as "Luo Yonghao" from Binance Wallet .
Luo Yonghao called on CZ to remove his cryptocurrency from app stores.
Luo Yonghao clearly didn't follow the hype logic of the "modern crypto." For Meme users, "it's not the criticism you face, it's the being ignored"—even negative publicity is still publicity. So, almost simultaneously, the market capitalization of the Meme coin named "Luo Yonghao" on the BSC chain surged to over $1 million, peaking at $3 million, before falling back below $500,000.
Seeing that the token price still rose despite his denial, Luo Yonghao bluntly said, "Foolish investors deserve it," and regarded the crypto as a mentally ill circle.
The statement "The wallet is, after all, Binance's exchange" reveals another area of knowledge that Luo Yonghao was unaware of: demanding that the "spiritual head" of Binance Wallet delist decentralized on-chain tokens. How exactly would this be done?
On-chain rules are static, but Binance is dynamic. Since we can't erase this coin, we should block it from the front end .
Following Luo Yonghao's statement, Binance responded swiftly within half an hour, blocking "Luo Yonghao" in its platform search system. Users could no longer find related Meme coins by searching for these three words; even directly entering "Meme contract" would replace the token name with "***". Subsequently, Luo Yonghao retweeted Odaily's post, requesting Binance to also block his profile picture.
Luo Yonghao retweeted an Odaily tweet demanding that Binance also block his profile picture.
Subsequently, another major crypto exchage, OKX, also blocked the Meme coin and avatar associated with "Luo Yonghao" on its wallet page. Of course, users can still trade related Meme coins through native on-chain tools such as GMGN.
Binance handled everything quietly, without issuing an announcement or explanation. Some players believe that Binance and other platforms' actions show a lack of consideration for the on-chain community. Since celebrity tokens have existed in the crypto for a long time and haven't negatively impacted Luo Yonghao himself, does blocking this "Luo Yonghao" meme token mean that all meme tokens with the same name can now be hidden by the original owner at any time?
In response to Luo Yonghao's public challenge, CZ only replied with an emoji "😂". When Luo Yonghao pressed further on how to reasonably request exchanges to delist the token, CZ did not reply.
Luo Yonghao asked CZ for advice on how to properly apply for the delisting of tokens.
This is not the first time Luo Yonghao has interacted with the crypto. Back in 2018, Justin Sun offered Luo Yonghao an annual salary of 1 million yuan to be the spokesperson for the entrepreneurial spirit of Tron, but Luo Yonghao refused.
On May 15, some netizens suggested that Luo Yonghao join the crypto again. Luo Yonghao responded that if he had no shame, he would have done an ICO to fleece investors back in 2018 and bought a small island to retire. At that time, many scammers were willing to give him coins, but he refused them all.
Luo Yonghao claimed in 2019 that he would also issue his own cryptocurrency.
Not issuing its own cryptocurrency doesn't mean it won't be traded. He once invested 1 million yuan in Bitcoin in 2018 and made a staggering 30 million yuan, yet he still advises his employees to focus on their work and not to speculate in cryptocurrencies…
Cherish Luo Yonghao
Even now, some people still suspect the account is fake and are looking for various time discrepancies. For example, some netizens believe that Luo Yonghao was live-streaming on the evening of May 15th, but his account X still posted, so they judged the account to be fake. Luo Yonghao then criticized them, calling them "stupid to death." Regardless of whether the account is real or fake, at least the personality traits match up…
Netizens are hesitant to believe the account is genuine, perhaps because they don't believe that in this sensitive online world where "everything needs to be correct," Luo Yonghao, as a public figure, can still maintain such a strong sense of "humanity." Too many public figures protect themselves by "isolating" themselves and relying on teams to manage their accounts to avoid external harm. After all, not everyone can withstand the onslaught of online public opinion.
Luo Yonghao is genuine, so genuine that he doesn't care about the consequences. Last year's Xibei controversy started when he ate at a Xibei restaurant and expressed his opinion that Xibei was overpriced pre-made food that wasn't even good. The situation then escalated out of control.
After returning to X, Luo Yonghao's remarks seem even less sophisticated and restrained. He frequently engages in close combat with trolls in the comments section over a simple point of view, speaking bluntly, vulgarly, and aggressively.
But upon closer reflection, in this era of rampant "AI slop" and everyone's self-preservation, people are becoming smarter and more "human-machine."
On Luo Yonghao 's X account, he published a long article of over 20,000 words, which was a dialogue between him and AI about brain-computer interfaces (BCI), the future of humanity, and higher and lower dimensional intelligence. What impressed me most was when they talked about love. Luo Yonghao said that these were just his "whining" as a lower form of life, but AI's response was: it is precisely these low-level, irrational whinings that constitute what makes humans different as carbon-based life forms.
In my opinion, Luo Yonghao can at least inject a sense of authenticity into the internet today, so I urge him to protect this uniquely human "low-level chatter".
