From an ordinary civil servant in Jiangsu to a crypto big shot managing a 100 billion fund, he only took five years.
"Twenty years later, at most, I would rise to a deputy bureau level, earning what seems to be a decent salary, about 15,000 yuan a month."
On a deep night in March 2013, an ordinary employee from Changzhou, Jiangsu, curled up in front of a computer in a Shanghai rental, the screen's faint light reflecting his weary face.
Not wanting to live a life without hope, he had just quit his public job to work as an operator for a Taobao underwear store in Shanghai.
At this moment, director Wang Xiaoshan's brief words about Bitcoin on Weibo struck like lightning, cutting through his confused life.
This young man, who resigned due to emptiness within the system and barely made ends meet by selling thermal underwear, invested all of his 6,000 yuan into an unfamiliar field, acquiring 20 bitcoins priced at 300 yuan each at that time.
His full name is Yu Wenzhuo, but everyone remembers him by his crypto name—Old Cat @Imlaomao.
Later, Old Cat wrote in (Night Journey): "Like a child attracted by a distant dream, following a star's light, began the night journey."
No one expected that this all-or-nothing decision would completely rewrite the landscape of the blockchain industry in China.
Comeback: From civil servant to Bitcoin evangelist (2013-2014)
When the old cat built the first domestic Bitcoin shopping website 'Pineapple Market' using WordPress, he may not have realized he was standing at the forefront of the era.
At the Bitcoin China 3rd Anniversary Auction in 2014, he held a microphone and auctioned a football signed by industry celebrities for **30 bitcoins at a sky-high price** (valued at about 60,000 yuan), and a Forbes reporter's camera immediately focused on this previously unknown young man.
This auction not only made the name 'Old Cat' famous in the crypto space but also brought about a life-changing opportunity—Li Xiaolai's team extended an olive branch to him, inviting him to join their Pixiu team.
After joining, Old Cat keenly noticed that the 'Pixiu' domain name peatio.com was obscure and hard to remember. He decisively invested 200,000 yuan to acquire yunbi.com, pushing for the platform to be renamed to—Yunbi.
It was this renaming that led to Yunbi's rapid success after its launch in October 2014. As the chief operator of Yunbi, Old Cat was sensitive and flexible to the market, leading to a thriving operation. Later, under his leadership, Yunbi became the first exchange in China to list ETH.
Before ETH went live on Yunbi, major exchanges in the country mainly had Bitcoin and Litecoin. Some keen individuals who wanted to buy ETH could only go to foreign exchanges, which was very inconvenient.
I also entered the crypto space in 2015, and bought my first ETH (priced at 30 yuan) in 2016, which was completed on Yunbi.
The man who predicted Ethereum (2015-2016)
In early 2015, public accounts were just gaining popularity, and Old Cat also launched a public account to promote cryptocurrencies.
In-depth analysis articles became a must-read for retail investors in the crypto space at that time, akin to throwing stones into water, especially in an era with little cryptocurrency media. (Similar popular accounts included Hanjiangxue's Daily Coin Read, which I will write about later).
(Why is buying Bitcoin like shorting the entire world?) Pointing directly to the flaws in the fiat currency system.
(What lies behind the frenzy of Ethereum?) Predicting a surge in Ethereum's value.
Later in 2017, Ethereum surged from several dozen yuan at the beginning of the year to 2,800 yuan. This article was dug up and crazily shared, breaking a million views, and the followers called it a 'divine prophecy,' while Old Cat humorously referred to it as 'luck from playing tricks.'
Knowledge empowerment quickly transformed into community momentum. The "Cat Friends Circle" he created attracted **8,800+ members**, and the BCA Club lectures every Thursday evening became a major event in the community.
To attract everyone, he distributed 5 ETH red envelopes in each class, joking: "Unfortunately, most people sold them early."
In December 2016, he quietly revealed the private placement opportunity for Gongxinbao during a lecture—250 spots, each investing 2 BTC in exchange for 40,000 GXS (Gongxinbao).
Six months later, Gongxinbao's market opened with a surge of **100 times**, and all participants became millionaires. From then on, Old Cat's image began to rise among retail investors.
Gongxinbao was one of the earliest products to propose the concept of on-chain identity and credit rating. Many old retail investors still remember the past of mining Gongxinbao.
The journey of capital: From the fall of Yunbi to a 100 billion fund (2016-2018)
In August 2016, Old Cat, together with Li Xiaolai and Yi Lihua, jointly founded Coin Capital (INBlockchain)—one of the most influential investment institutions in the blockchain field in the future.
In 2017, due to the convenience of asset issuance brought by ETH, a large number of new coins emerged, marking the true ICO wave. Private placements and public offerings became the easiest ways for retail investors in the crypto space to get rich at that time. I had invested in dozens of coins in private placements that year, many of which went to zero, but I also hit on later successful projects like Link and Solana that became thousand-fold returns.
In April 2017, the ICOINFO platform led by Old Cat emerged, **rapidly becoming the largest ICO platform globally in a hundred days**, triggering a nationwide private placement frenzy.
In my impression, whenever a new ICO project was launched on ICOINFO or a new project on Yunbi, the servers would crash because everyone knew that getting in would mean at least several times the return.
However, the policy's iron fist struck suddenly. On September 4, 2017, the most famous event in the domestic crypto space—'94' happened.
The People's Bank of China, together with seven ministries, issued an announcement to prevent risks of token issuance and financing, explicitly prohibiting any form of ICO (Initial Coin Offering) activities and categorizing them as illegal public financing. Subsequently, related exchanges in the country were also required to shut down.
Bitcoin fell from a peak of $4,900 to $2,900, a drop of 40%.
Yunbi, which operated for 1,265 days, announced its closure. Witnessing the rise and fall, the old cat, in his farewell letter, did not show despair: "The blockchain train will not stop."
In a turn of events, he had already formed a team for the BigONE exchange in Tokyo and declared in March 2018 (amidst turbulent times, I choose to be a super node), announcing his candidacy for **EOS super node in a public welfare model**: "All profits will be returned to voters proportionally." A month later, he appeared in the Hangzhou blockchain industry park, co-managing the **100 billion-scale Xiong'an Fund** with Li Xiaolai, with the government funding 30% to support it, and Xu Xiaoping as an advisor. He completed the transformation from exchange trader to manager of a 100 billion fund.
Four, Investment Philosophy: Hard assets reign supreme, and never All-in.
Although the old cat gradually faded from the public eye in the crypto space, his early judgments on trends and projects are truly worth learning from and emulating.
Later, I also summarized Old Cat's investment philosophy and the repeatedly emphasized points in the Cat Friends Circle, condensing them into nine iron rules:
1️⃣ Over 50% position allocation for Bitcoin— the bottom line of 'hard assets' in the blockchain world.
2️⃣ 5-10% Defensive allocation of second-tier market cap coins (like ETH)
3️⃣ ≤15% Position for 'preference projects' **(single project ≤5%)**
4️⃣ 5-10% Specializing in ICOs (analogous to IPOs in the stock market)
5️⃣ Always keep cash positions to seize opportunities
6️⃣ Training independent judgment skills: "Following the herd in investment is doomed to fail!"
7️⃣ Focus on long-term value: "Buy and hold, ignore short-term fluctuations"
8️⃣ Absolute taboo: **Never All-in** — even for Bitcoin
9️⃣ I don't hold projects I don't believe in for more than three years, not even for three minutes.