"Friends around me often complain to me that I was born at the wrong time. I missed Taobao in 2008, WeChat in 2013, and TikTok in 2018, but the bigger world is right in front of us. Web3 gives young people all opportunities: From SBF to us, we should all jump into the sea and embrace the huge waves."
On September 27, a piece of news about "18th grade students of Shenzhen University donated 50 million yuan to give back to their alma mater" exploded on social media, and speculations abounded in the public. "Son of Tencent CTO Zhang Zhidong", "Founder of Singapore ABD Capital", "CEO of China xx Company", all serious comments seem to be trying to shape this young celebrity into the so-called second generation. Today, this article will use four chapters to in-depth restore the story behind this self-made genius-Zhang Yufeng. (Zhang Yufeng’s circle name is octopus, and he is abbreviated as oct below)
Chapter 1: A first glimpse of the door - exposure to trading, deep learning
Although people on the Internet have different opinions about Oct’s true identity and the industry he is engaged in, one thing that can be agreed upon is that Oct graduated from Shenzhen University with an 18th-level major in international trade. In the current pessimistic economic and employment situation, the strong sense of separation between "donating 50 million" and "just graduating two years ago" stimulates the nerves of every Internet viewer. It is understandable that many people choose to believe in the so-called second-generation rich or second-generation characters tailored for OCT, perhaps out of a desire to no longer be superstitious about contemporary rags-to-riches stories. However, anyone familiar with oct and web3 knows that such a conjecture is non-committal because his true identity is a legendary crypto trader and he once worked for the well-known crypto exchange FTX.
Back in 2018, Oct, who had just entered Shenzhen University, was like most people and had no clear plans for the future. Every time he recalls this past event, Oct feels very emotional, because at that time, he had a preconceived and strong resistance to trading, especially crypto trading. Perhaps due to biased reports on asset trading in some domestic media, OCT once believed that all traders, including Buffett, were engaging in risky speculative games, and some hedge funds were able to make profits only with capital. The advantage of volume. “Pure speculation” is the bad first impression that trading left on the young oct.
In the blink of an eye, the time came to the end of 2020, and similar news such as "Bitcoin surged 300% throughout the year, once approaching $30,000" began to gradually enter the mainstream public's vision, but it was different from the attitude that most people dismissed. It was oct who chose to abandon his previous prejudices and instead research and try to invest in crypto. As everyone knows, at this moment, the gears of fate begin to turn quietly.
If traders are also divided into those who do things and those who think, then OCT must be in the former. Even though OCT made his first "six figures" by investing in U.S. stocks Bilibili and Hong Kong stocks Xiaomi, OCT still chose to invest in crypto after weighing the whole position. . As we all know, the financial market has always regarded the law of the jungle as the rule, and crypto is the most dangerous jungle of thorns, but oct happens to be the cheetah that holds its breath for a long time. After months of sniffing, oct spied his first prey - Solana ($sol). Relying on the in-depth research habit developed during his internship in the primary market, oct conducted a comprehensive research and analysis on the crypto track and sol. After getting a positive answer, he invested all his investment funds.
What is worth mentioning here is oct’s investment research ideas: similar to primary market analysis, oct also chooses to start from the crypto macro market. He believes that the Ethereum smart contract system is one of the greatest achievements of the blockchain, but such high gas is a huge obstacle to its development. "Just like New York, it's expensive and good but also has traffic jams." Therefore, a public chain that can also run smart contract systems and has low gas has become the target of oct. The search scope has been narrowed, but there are still many targets. Oct chooses to think from these two perspectives:
He believes that whether crypto has a "strong banker" will be a completely different trend for the target, because the concept held by the token and the token price trend are two completely independent things, and behind sol is the powerful FTX background. In addition, oct believes that "sol will become the sharpest spear for FTX" because a controllable and excellent public chain will be of great benefit to exchanges, such as BNBChain to Binance and OKChain to OKX (then called OKEX), so FTX has no The reason is not to strongly support sol.
Compared with traders, builders have a more sensitive sense of smell and can better understand the development of public chains at the first time. Because every entrepreneurial builder is sacrificing his or her own life to get into the game, and all their previous efforts will be wasted if they are not careful, so they will desperately choose the best and most promising public chain. Sol's hackathon, both formal and informal, is of the highest quality among public chains.
Seeing this, the operation of oct still did not make him stand out. Anyone who has experienced buy and hodl knows that the real difficulty is not the buying process, but whether you can stick to your increasingly devalued position during the long hodl process. OCT has also encountered this kind of decision. After buying sol in full at the beginning of 2021, sol fell all the way and fell to less than $1 many times. Oct was very candid when recalling this past. The huge retracement did have a huge impact on his work and life. For a long time, he struggled with his inner desire to "liquidate his position." But in the end, the goddess of fate favored OCT. After a long period of consolidation, Sol surged all the way from the buying point of $3 to $200+. At this time, OCT, which had already made huge profits, finally chose to take advantage of it. After this battle, Oct's assets grew to tens of millions.
Although oct has already become famous now, such an all-in trading method with a slight luck attribute does not seem to impress everyone who has had similar experiences, especially for those diamond traders who believe that "stud is a kind of wisdom" but have suffered huge retracements. Word. But it is undeniable that looking back in the rearview mirror, Oct can see through the fog every time and walk among the dangerous but beneficial rapids and rocks...
To be continued
The relevant information in this article comes from public information on the Internet, as well as Traders' Talk's exclusive interview with octopus and FTX trader's exclusive interview - Behind the FTX Thunderstorm (Sarch & octopus). In addition, all episodes of Traders' Talk are very excellent and are strongly recommended to everyone. Learn from investors who dream of trading.
Traders' Talk is an investment interview podcast hosted by Sarah and sponsored by Deribit. Traders from different investment segments are here to review their experiences, exchange insights, inspire inspiration, and break stereotypes. Traders have different identities. They can be value investors/option traders/quantitative traders distributed in traditional financial markets at home and abroad, or they can be traders active in the Web3 field in a broad sense, such as NFT hodlers, GameFi players, and DAOs. Enthusiasts etc.
All the above market analysis and content are for reference only and do not represent investment advice and decision-making basis for anyone. Please do not make any investment decisions based on this report. The author is not responsible for the user's investment results. This article is only for communication and learning among trading enthusiasts and cannot and will not be used for any commercial activities.
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Author Twitter: @0xBeyondLee