Introduction
In the 7×24 hour non-stop global financial market of cryptocurrency, ordinary people may achieve financial freedom overnight, or they may lose everything in an instant. In the past year, the MEME market has witnessed countless myths of thousands or even tens of thousands of times, but in this world full of opportunities and risks, what kind of people can master the real wealth code?
The guest we invited today has widely known achievements, but is very low-key. He used to be a programmer at ByteDance and is now a full-time on-chain trader with huge crypto assets. More importantly, his name is very special - 'Calm, Calm, and Calm again'.
In the extremely emotional market of Crypto, what does rationality and calmness really mean? What kind of mental journey is required to change from a speculative mentality to a trading mentality? When the skyrocketing and plummeting of MEME coins test everyone's psychological endurance, what kind of trading philosophy can keep a person awake in the volatility?
Let's walk into the world of this mysterious trader and explore his wealth code and trading philosophy together.
This episode of OKX's friends dialogue guest: Calm Calm and Calm again, interviewer: Mercy, welcome everyone to follow~
Chapter One: From Byte Programmer to On-chain Trader
Mercy: Can you first give a simple self-introduction?
Calm: Hello everyone, I am Calm. Friends who play on-chain should know me more or less. I gave myself an ENS address name when I was playing Ethereum NFTs, 'Calm Calm and Calm again'. I have almost forgotten why I suddenly wanted to take this name at that time. It may be that I rushed too many貔貅and withdrew from the pool, and then I wanted to calm myself down. Many people followed my Twitter through my address.
Along the way, I have made good profits on many coins on-chain, and also became one of the on-chain drivers in Solana's MEME market last year.
Mercy: You tweeted that you used to work at ByteDance. I would like to ask what was the opportunity for you to enter the circle from Byte?
Calm: I came into contact with Crypto at the peak of the 2021 bull market. At that time, I was still working at Byte. At that time, I heard some Crypto stories of getting rich quickly in the chat with other colleagues. At that time, I had just bought a house and had a lot of economic pressure, so I was eager to try to participate, and asked my colleagues to pull me into a few coin speculation groups.
At that time, I never thought that I would resign to speculate on coins in the future, or even achieve financial freedom. I just thought it was a trading opportunity and wanted to explore whether I could make money. So I started to contact the currency circle in my daily work. Although I was not full-time, I participated in the on-chain hot spots in the past two or three years, including NFT, Ethereum's MEME, and Solana's MEME that started last year.
In the process, I also changed from a novice to an increasingly experienced on-chain player, but it is true that because I was not able to trade full-time, I missed a lot of opportunities. To be honest, ordinary users had quite a few opportunities to make money on-chain in the past few years.
Mercy: What made you finally decide to resign from Byte and enter the currency circle full-time?
Calm: The main reason for resigning from Byte and speculating on coins full-time is that the market was too good in the second half of last year, and I felt it was difficult to balance the two. During that time, I often had to get up at 4-5 in the morning to stare at the market, and then stare until 9 in the morning to go to work. After returning at night, I would sit in front of the computer for one to two hours to speculate on coins, and then go to bed at 10 o'clock. The whole person felt very tired.
Friends often ask me when to resign, because during that time, the income of a dog coin was often more than a year's salary. But I myself felt that although I made some money, I didn't feel very relieved to resign. After all, my salary in Web2 at that time was not bad.
The turning point that made me determined to resign from Byte and join the crypto circle full-time was when I encountered PNUT in November last year. I have always liked this narrative and studied its market capitalization ranking in spot MEMEs, and found that it was the second or third from the bottom, that is, the narrative and popularity with a lower market capitalization than it are far inferior to it.
At that time, I judged that the safety cushion for buying was relatively high, and the possibility of a big loss was very small, so I bought it with a heavy position. At that time, I sold about 20 BTC, and then bought it all in.
Then everyone knows what happened. The next day, Musk tweeted that the PNUT MEME coin saved the United States. This kind of tweet directly mentioning MEME coins is actually very rare. I remember that the market sentiment was also very good at that time, and it took off in a straight line, pulling from 300+ M to about 1.5B, and then pulling to 2.5B after another night, which is equivalent to about 7 times the maximum. I cleared my position later when it fell to 1.8B, but I got the first big profit, and then after having this capital, I resigned and entered the coin circle full-time.
Mercy: What impact do you think your work experience at Byte had on your subsequent full-time on-chain trading?
Calm: I was a programmer when I worked at Byte, and I used to be a computer major. I think the bigger impact is that my English is better, I understand technology faster, I can understand and understand narratives faster, and my trading habits are more rational and less easily influenced by others.
Mercy: What is the difference between doing on-chain trading full-time and working in a large factory?
Calm: There is no going back. I really like a lyric in Hotel California: "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." You are used to this tense but free life of Crypto, and it is difficult to return to that step-by-step life.
Especially last year from the second half of the year until the period when Trump issued coins, the adrenaline stimulation given to you on-chain every day made many things boring. The biggest difference between full-time on-chain trading and working in a large factory is that you are completely responsible for yourself, your income and future are all in your own hands, not in the hands of the boss.
So it will definitely be more intense when the market is good, but the difficulty and amount of making money in the crypto market when the market is good or bad are vastly different, so I think it is completely voluntary. After getting up, I will be very excited to sit in front of the computer to see if there are any opportunities, maybe I will sit for a day, and sleep very little, but I will not feel very tired.
It will also be more flexible, for example, if you make money during this period and want to rest for a while, that's completely OK, no one will assess you. What kind of life to choose, I think it depends on the individual's personality, I prefer this kind of Crypto lifestyle.
Chapter Two: Cultivation and Transformation of Trading Mentality
Mercy: Your Twitter bio mentions 'quitting my gambling addiction', can you share why you wrote such a sentence in your bio?
Calm: It was actually a moment after Trump coin. I felt very satisfied with the return of this round, and it was time to stop trading with large positions. After all, you can't make all the money, but you can lose it all, so I think you can appropriately reduce the risk. Of course, I will not withdraw from the circle, just play on-chain.
Before changing to this profile, I remember that my previous profile was: "A 29 years old man with millions of dollars and gambling addiction." I used to have a higher risk preference. You can see that I used to all-in on PNUT, but after the amount of funds became large, I felt that I should no longer do this, so I changed it to the current profile.
Mercy: What was your biggest profit or loss in the trading process?
Calm: The biggest profit was from Trump coin, which should have made 23M in the end. For losses, I usually set stop losses, and I rarely use very large positions on-chain. I also don't trade altcoins on exchanges, so a loss of 50-60k USD is a lot for me.
The most memorable loss was the Argentina president's Libra, which lost more than 200,000 U, but at that time, I had just earned some money from Trump, so it didn't feel like much. Now if I lose more than 200,000 U, I will feel heartache for a few days. Because it is really too difficult to make money now, there is a saying that is very good 'I always thought that opportunities are unlimited, so I never cherish the good days in front of me'.
Mercy: How do you manage your mentality when facing huge profits/losses?
Calm: I think I have always felt that you should earn more when you should earn, and lose less when you should lose. I never care about the win rate, mainly look at the position. I am still learning about mentality management myself. There are currently a few points:
- The first point is related to everyone's amount of funds and risk preference. I will buy a position that I can sleep comfortably, and the definition of comfortable is that it doesn't matter if it goes to zero.
- The second is to buy coins that you really like and think are interesting, instead of following others or buying what you see someone else buying.
- Finally, there is your own trading strategy and plan, such as how much profit you want to take when the market capitalization rises to a certain level. I think an overseas KOL Alien Cat said this very well, he said that a transaction can be divided into good win, bad win, good lose and bad lose.
Good win means that you saw the trend and space earlier than others, and you have your own point of view, and the trend of things is indeed consistent with your point of view. Finally, you also got the desired returns. This victory is worth celebrating.
Bad win means you just made a blind investment or followed someone, someone bought a coin, but you were very lucky, for example, Musk suddenly replied to this coin, or the technology you didn't understand is actually very good. This kind of victory can be enjoyed, but we shouldn't pursue this kind of victory.
Good lose is that you followed your trading system and theory, but ultimately it was not successful. It may be that some things beyond your control happened, or that the market ultimately did not agree with your point of view. I have actually taken a lot of good loses these months, but I don't think there is any problem. For example, there are actually many targets on many platforms that are inconsistent with my aesthetics, and I will not feel sorry for missing these coins. There are also some coins that I like that did not run out in the end, resulting in not making money. I think these situations are acceptable.
The last one is Bad lose, which is that your transaction is driven by emotions and does not follow your own trading system, then you will ultimately pay the price. This kind of failure is what we want to avoid.
Chapter Three: Trading System and Coin Selection Philosophy
Mercy: How did you build your own trading system?
Calm: We usually divide trading into several steps. The first step is to discover opportunities, which requires collecting and building some wallet addresses, which can give you some trading signals, and discovering some high-quality information sources, such as Twitter users, or Alpha groups. Regarding wallet addresses, it is important to note that no matter who buys, it can only be used as a reference, and the specific decision of whether to buy depends on your own judgment. Blindly following anyone is a negative EV operation.
Regarding Twitter users and Alpha groups, you need to identify which content is valuable. It is relatively easy to verify on-chain players. You only need to look at the profit situation of their real-time address. The so-called "Talk is cheap, show me the wallet". I think a point that newbies are more easily fooled by is that many people on Twitter do accept advertisements or open paid groups for traffic, but remember that the wallet address is always the best verification method.
After discovering the opportunity, the second step is to judge whether to buy in, so how to judge? You need to combine the previous judgment of MEME coin narrative aesthetics. However, aesthetics is very subjective, but I think it is very important, especially when liquidity is good. Because there are many coins issued on-chain every day, you need to have your own standards to quickly judge whether to buy a token.
Now it may only take me one or two minutes to make a judgment on whether to buy, and I will immediately make a decision. So I think this aesthetic is difficult to quantify. Many times it depends very much on a person's experience and intuition. If you want to cultivate aesthetics, you should watch and play more, interesting coins, interesting things, and spend less energy on so-called garbage coins and dealer coins, and slowly cultivate your ability to see narratives.
Mercy: You mentioned on Twitter that your choice of MEME is actually based on aesthetics. This statement is very interesting. Why do you use this as one of the criteria for selection?
Calm: I have also tried to quantify some aesthetic standards before. Now I will share with you which coins I am willing to buy:
- The first is technological innovation. The technological innovation doesn't need to be huge or perfect, but it must have innovation, and it can't be a complete copycat, which would be very cheap.
- The second is a MEME with the potential for wide dissemination. This requires attention to endorsements from celebrities and large companies. For example: Ghibli. It is actually a picture style launched by ChatGPT, which has formed a viral spread on Twitter. This kind of MEME has the potential for wide dissemination because it has the endorsement of large companies. The endorsement here does not refer to coins issued by large companies, because most MEME coins are just蹭的, referring to the technology and hot topics, which are led by celebrities or large companies, so the probability of its wide dissemination will be much greater.
- The third is the cult. The so-called cult is like SPX or Milady, or like Hippos, Bitcoin (ticker Bitcoin Harry Potter that coin). Murad's (English district driver) list contains many coins that belong to this category of cults.
The characteristics of this type of coin: First, it will eventually form a strong community; Second, generally speaking, it is not a quick pass, and it will experience a long wash. So you need to be able to hold it and go deep into the community to understand and agree with their culture.
There is also a type that is a project released by other companies with a low market value. For example, a project, a surprise release, or a pre-heating disk, but its opening was sniped by a sniper for a large number of chips, resulting in a crazy smashing of the disk by the sniper at the time of opening, giving you a low market value entry opportunity.
This type of project can often rise relatively high in a short period of time due to unreasonable pricing at the time of opening. After one or two days of hot spot fermentation, it will quickly smooth out the price difference and eventually return to its due market value. This kind of money is more suitable for on-chain players to grab and earn, because any sudden hot spots or sudden projects issued by other companies can be captured by on-chain players, and they can earn a lot of money in a short period of time, which we all like more.
Finally, a MEME that makes you want to laugh at first glance. This depends on each person's understanding of MEME. Previously, there was a masked dog on Base. I found it very funny at first glance, a dog wearing a mask looking at you in a video, this kind of MEME is also what I like.
The above points are the so-called my aesthetic standards. Of course, when I see a coin, I will not apply these standards. Many times I rely on my feeling, but the feeling may ultimately fall into these categories.
Mercy: How do you usually set stop losses?
Calm: There are several situations. One is to monitor the project team's Twitter and see the project progress. If you think the project team's Twitter speech is not what you like, or its progress does not meet expectations, and you feel strange, I may sell even if I lose money in this situation.
Another is that I feel that the hot spot has shifted. At this time, I will sell even if I lose money. Also, when I see the project team's rat warehouse is shipping, I may also sell in this situation. Finally, when I find a coin that may have more room for growth, I may switch a coin's position to another.
Chapter Four: Current Market Environment and Investment Strategy
Mercy: Many full-time on-chain traders have recently felt that the on-chain market is becoming more and more difficult to play after TRUMP, and the upper limit of MEME coin rises is not as high as before. How do you think the current market should be operated?
Calm: Trump coin was definitely the peak of on-chain liquidity because the months before its launch were already the golden age of on-chain.
At that time, like MOODENG, NEIRO, GOAT, AI on Solana, HIPPO, it felt too common for a coin to reach 50M at that time, and it was even very common to pull to 50M or 70M within a day. At that time, no one said to look for a dealer. We could naturally rise when we saw a good narrative. Many people actually made a lot of money at that time.
The on-chain liquidity in the past six months has been poor, and the difficulty has indeed increased a lot. On the one hand, Trump has taken away the liquidity, and on the other hand, there are indeed not as many narratives as last year, so it will lead to a very low upper limit for these coins. With a low upper limit, whales will definitely not be willing to come in. This is a vicious circle, so everyone will feel very difficult to play.
Now many coins that can rise are highly controlled, and this is inevitable. I think the most ideal situation on-chain next is to have a completely new Meta, because the funds are actually in the secondary market, so the funds are actually there, and everyone still has money. Secondary market players actually have a lot of money, but they lack a completely new on-chain Meta, similar to GOAT driving AI agent. This level can attract incremental funds and bring about better wealth effects. Otherwise, the on-chain is PVP every day.
But I can't predict what kind of gameplay will appear in the future, but the current market cannot be too long-term. Although for example, many coins recently, I think are very interesting, maybe its narrative can reach 80M, 100M, but it can't rise anymore when it rises to 30M. At this time, you need to adjust your psychological expectations.
Mercy: You shared on Twitter that you bought a lot of ETH at around 2200. Now it seems that this is indeed a relatively correct investment. I want to know why you wanted to buy a lot of Ethereum at that time? How do you balance the difference between long-term investment and short-term MEME trading?
Calm: At that time, I bought it mainly because I felt that ETH at 2000+ was the price of a bear market, which was indeed very cheap. ETH has the characteristics of decentralization and resistance to censorship, and has a strong moat compared to other coins, but at that time there was no current wave of stablecoins, and the ETH ETF had not been approved at that time.
Facts have proved that these trends are actually insignificant in the face of the amount of funds in Wall Street, and Wall Street's ability to tell stories is indeed strong.
In terms of long-term investment, before Trump coin, except for on-chain, my exchange was all-in BTC. Every time I make money on-chain, I will buy it into BTC. I will sell BTC when I need money. It is completely BTC-based, and the purpose of all operations is to own more BTC.
But after Trump coin, I took some of the funds and invested in stablecoin wealth management because if I were all-in on BTC, I would unconsciously want to check the price, and its fluctuations would affect my mood.
I used to think that ETH did not have the driving force of US stocks, and there was no strong demand on-chain, so it may not be a good store of value. So I was completely BTC-based. Now it has changed a bit, ETH has external capital injection. I know that many people have also chosen to hold ETH, but for me, I am not particularly interested in ETH, so I still choose to hold BTC except for USDT.
Chapter Five: Risk Management and Newbie Advice for Full-time Trading
Mercy: How do you view and manage the uncertainties of full-time on-chain trading?
Calm: I think there are two things to think about before going full-time into trading:
- The first is whether you have a continuous and stable earning ability. And the money earned through this ability is indeed far greater than working a regular job. Because you take on more risk, if the money earned is not more than working a regular job, or about the same, it doesn't make much sense. If you can't make money before going full-time, then you probably won't make money in the crypto space after going full-time. At this point, it's better to improve your skills while working and quit only when the job really prevents you from earning more money.
- The second is the need for some savings. Mainly in case the market suddenly turns bad, or if family members encounter an emergency that requires money, you have a financial cushion. It's best to have at least one or two years of daily consumption reserves.
Mercy: Are there any mistakes that must be avoided for newbies who want to enter the on-chain full-time?
Calm: At this stage, when the on-chain liquidity is not good, newbies can start with small-amount trial and error, and slowly build their own trading system with a positive EV that can achieve stable profitability.
Stability doesn't mean a high win rate or making money on every trade, but rather looking at a longer period, such as a week or a month, even if there are losses and gains, the overall return is positive. If you can make money now when liquidity is bad, then you can show your skills when on-chain liquidity returns.
Mistakes to avoid for newbies. The first is to know that there are many opportunities in blockchain, and FOMO chasing high should be avoided. Newbies have a small amount of funds, and it is difficult to hold on to chasing high at this time. If it fails, it will affect their mentality.
The second mistake that newbies easily make is that they like to follow orders. You must avoid blindly following orders. Many people like to follow orders from KOLs or smart money. This makes it difficult to improve their own ability, because simply following others cannot cultivate their ability to independently discover projects.
Mercy: Following trades is actually learned through losses. Only after losing enough money by following other people's trades will you feel that you need to have your own independent judgment.
Calm: Yes, maybe I followed it once or twice, and then made money, and then I was complacent, and then I became a continuous loss.
Because the driver has its own judgment, it may lose money continuously during this period, but it may make a lot of money in the next transaction. But newbies have a small amount of funds, and may have no patience after losing four or five times in a row, or the money is almost lost, and they will stop following the order. But the driver you follow may get a lot of returns next time, and you missed it.
Mercy: Do you feel any differences or similarities between NFT and this round of MEME coins when you entered the circle?
Calm: NFT and MEME coins are still very different.
The liquidity and wealth effect of NFT at that time were far less than that of MEME coins. In terms of liquidity, NFT often cannot be sold even if you want to sell a project, but MEME coins can be smashed out casually. An NFT project can earn 20 or 30 Ethereum, which is a lot. Even if 20 or 30 Ethereum is calculated at the current price, it is only 100,000 U. It seems that many people earn 100,000 U every day in MEME coins, so the wealth effect is very different.
Also, the cost of NFT is fair for us primary players. For example, everyone's cost is the same in the Mint stage. But if it is a MEME coin, such as you following someone, then your cost may be twice as much as theirs, because they can directly take out the principal. So in terms of difficulty, MEME coins will be much more difficult.
For project teams, the requirements for NFTs are also higher. Project teams need to at least draw and operate. MEME coin project teams actually only need to click the mouse a few times without any cost.
Chapter Six: Future Plans and Industry Outlook
Mercy: As a full-time on-chain trader, what are your future plans? Will you always do on-chain trading? Or do you have other plans?
Calm: First of all, I still want to stay in Crypto. Now crypto is driven by funds from US stocks, which is a good thing for the overall amount of funds and prices in the currency circle. It is equivalent to absorbing the money of retail traders in US stocks into the currency circle. The various policies in the United States now clear up many compliance issues for crypto, allowing many funds including pension funds to participate, so I am very optimistic about the future of cryptocurrency.
And at present, the number of people in the world who own Bitcoin is still a minority, and the devaluation of legal currency is inevitable. I believe that more and more people will embrace Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in the future.
I have always believed in a sentence said by Saylor: If Bitcoin does not go to zero, then it will reach $1 million per coin. Now it seems that the worry about going to zero is almost gone, because it has government support and enough consensus.
For my long-term plan, I hope that I can write some more exquisite products. There are many small tools now that are very beautiful. I hope that I can have some ideas in the future to make some valuable tools.
Mercy: Which function or product of OKX do you use more?
Calm: I have always thought that OKX has a very good product experience, especially because I use my mobile phone a lot, the APP terminal experience is very good. In the exchange, what I use more is current wealth management and dual-currency win.
Web3 is OKX Wallet, this goes without saying, most of the friends I know use OKX wallet. Many functions such as multi-wallet management and aggregated transactions are basically used every day. I hope OKX will make the wallet better and better, it is already very powerful now, and continue to make it better and better.
Conclusion
In this in-depth dialogue, I saw the complete process of a successful transformation from a programmer in a traditional Internet giant factory to a full-time crypto trader. "Calm" used his personal experience to tell us that the real wealth code in Crypto is not luck, but rational thinking, systematic methods, and continuous learning.
From entering the circle at the peak of the 2021 bull market, to experiencing the complete bear market baptism, and then finding his own trading rhythm in the MEME coin wave, the "calm" trading philosophy - from the classification thinking of "good win, bad win, good lose, bad lose", to the coin selection criteria based on "aesthetics", and then to the strict risk management principles - provides us with a relatively complete trading thinking framework.
More importantly, he maintains a clear understanding of the market. Whether it is the analysis of the current insufficient liquidity situation or the judgment of the long-term development trend of cryptocurrencies, it reflects the rationality and foresight that a mature trader should have.
As his ID suggests, in this extremely emotional market, 'Calm Calm and Calm again' may be the best trading philosophy. For newcomers who want to enter this field, small-amount trial and error, building a system, and learning from failures may be more important than pursuing overnight wealth.
After all, in the never-ending market of cryptocurrency, only those who can remain calm can truly master their own wealth code. Thank you for the calm, detailed, and sincere sharing! This is Mercy, the host from OKX, welcome everyone to follow.
Disclaimer: This article is for reference only. This article represents the author's views only and does not represent OKX's position. This article is not intended to provide (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation to purchase, sell, or hold digital assets; (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involves high risk and may fluctuate significantly. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. Consult your legal/tax/investment professional for your specific circumstances. You are solely responsible for understanding and complying with local applicable laws and regulations.
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