Editor's note: Recently, Andrew Kang, co-founder of Mechanism Capital, made remarks related to being bearish on Ethereum. Many people may have limited knowledge of it, but it has been deeply involved in the encryption industry for many years. It has invested in high-quality projects with a market value of billions such as Thorchain, Pancakeswap, Frax Finance, etc., and has also made a lot of gains in transactions. Odaily Planet Daily will combine the sharing of X platform user @Atlas to introduce Andrew Kang in this article for readers’ reference.
Recent views: Ethereum’s upside is limited, Bitcoin may hit new highs in 2025
In the current volatile market, everyone has different views on this. As a capital partner, crypto KOL and legendary trader, the perspective of Andrew Kang (hereinafter referred to as Kang) may be more reference. value.
On June 24, Kang posted on Limited to 20%, many seemed to increase leverage during the last pullback in April. However, the market in the last cycle frequently experienced leverage liquidation, resulting in retracements of 30% to 60%, totaling evaporation. Hundreds of billions of dollars. Different cycles have different paradigms, but when people get too comfortable and believe that something is impossible, that is usually when disaster strikes. Although I am bearish, this is not a warning. You short the market or sell everything. Be sure to be aware of the investment risks and don't bet everything on one trade. If you face greater market volatility than expected, the option of having more capital reserves is invaluable."
Later, perhaps out of consideration to prevent "slap in the face", or perhaps because he felt that the meaning of the risk warning was not clear, he added: "The current market environment reminds me of May 2021, not June 2021. Not even in December 2020. At that time, we were accustomed to only going up and chasing the bottom. We experienced a major adjustment from $64,000 to $45,000, but everyone expected the market to rebound, but the end result was that the bottom went all the way down. . We hold onto hope; for example, more retail investors are coming, $40,000 is strong support, the current environment is the same, all are 9-10 months after the start of the bull market, except this time it is Ethereum. ETF – Legendary trader GCR has stated that he is bullish. I believe GCR’s timeframe is correct on the multi-year timeframe and we will see Bitcoin hit new highs in 2025 (but not all altcoins will). That doesn’t mean the market won’t go through extreme corrections on a few-month time frame. After all, the market can tame the unruly and bring them back to their original state.”
On June 23, Kang published an article analyzing the potential impact of the Ethereum spot ETF on the market. He believed that the Bitcoin spot ETF provided a channel for many new buyers to allocate Bitcoin in their portfolios, but the impact of the Ethereum ETF was far less. So clear. Unless Ethereum carves out a convincing path to improving economic conditions, its price will not see significant upside from the approval of a spot ETF.
On June 20, Kang’s view was as clear as ever: “Although the market momentum has turned from up to down due to the lack of large ETF capital inflows, I firmly believe that Bitcoin is still strong and will not fall below $50,000; for Ethereum, I It is predicted that its price may remain stable until the ETF is listed, but the upper limit of the increase this year is expected to be around US$4,000.”
It can be seen that Kang is more optimistic about the future of Bitcoin than Ethereum, and this is based on his rich experience accumulated in the encryption market in the past.
Stop believing that Ethereum is a "coin circle Huida"! Boss Andrew Kang reveals 3 fatal reasons: typical bubble high point illusion
Multiple Roles: The Dual Life of Crypto KOLs and Crypto Investors
As of now, Kang's personal account has more than 260,000 followers on the . This is a huge upside opportunity for derivatives exchanges such as Deribit, BitMEX, and Binance. As competition in the mining industry intensifies and profit margins decline, mining operators will need to start getting involved in the derivatives financial product market in order to survive and thrive. The resulting trading activity can generate revenue several times that of miners.
In June 2020, the official account of Mechanism Capital was officially established, and Kang also transformed from a trader and crypto KOL to officially becoming a crypto investor. "The shadow is the best and the investment is the best" - this is usually a major feature of the cryptocurrency industry. As we mentioned in the previous article "Dismantling the Top KOL Investment List and Looking for New Alpha", when the influence of KOL reaches a certain level, along with the growth of personal wealth and assets, investment will follow. As opportunities increase, becoming an angel investor in the crypto industry is a natural thing. The difference is that some people maintain their personal investment status, while others choose to establish an investment fund corresponding to institutional operations. Kang chose the latter. Previously, Mechanism Capital had successfully invested in the well-known blockchain project NEON.
In February this year, Kang shared his investment philosophy on social media platforms - "The way to achieve a thousand-fold increase is to discover teams with excellent product potential early on."
He mentioned, “In 2018, I had a portfolio worth $50,000, and by mid-2021, I grew this portfolio to the same size as many well-known cryptocurrency funds in the industry without taking in any external funds. The only way this is possible is to identify S-level teams with great product potential early on, accumulate majority ownership of the projects through the public market, and fully support them until they increase in value by more than 100 times, and some even increase in value by 1,000 times. Including token incentive/issuance design, marketing/community development strategy, DeFi integration/partnership, exchange connection, product design, introduction of other signals/value-added funds/investors/users/developers, and becoming a high energy source of the protocol Users, etc. I have followed many of these projects from the start-up stage with a market value of less than US$50 million to more than US$2 billion, and some even exceed US$5 billion, including Thorchain, Pancakeswap, Frax Finance, etc.”
Source: A glance at CryptoRank_ioKang’s asset table
According to data from the CryptoRank website, Kang’s latest and quite well-known investments are Blast and Puffer Finance. In addition, he has also invested in the NFT mortgage lending platform MetaStreet, the Solana ecological cross-chain communication network Zeus Network (and is a leading investor), and crypto games Gambling platform Shuffle, Blast ecological lending project Orbit Protocol, RWA Layer2 network Plume Network and many other projects.
Not only that, Kang himself also pays a lot of attention to another popular track besides cryptocurrency. In February this year, he made "the largest investment in history" in the AI humanoid robot company Figure (note: with the blockchain Figure Technologies, a blockchain financial services company), with an investment amount of US$19 million. He believes that Brett Adcock (Founder of Figure) and his team will take advantage of the human labor market, the world's largest capital market with a scale of $42 trillion, and deploy millions of robots in the next few years. , at least 100 million robots will be deployed by the end of this decade. "
Image source: CryptoRank_ioCrypto Rank investment portfolio interface
Source: Rootdata
In addition, according to data from the Rootdata website, Kang has invested in 12 projects in the past year, while the number of recorded projects is 15, including the NFT crowdfunding DAO organization PleasrDAO, in which he is deeply involved.
It is worth mentioning that according to information on the Rootdata website, its relevant network includes multiple partners of Mechanism Capital, including Steven Cho, Ken, Marc Weinstein, and PleasrDAO founder DeFiTed.
This has to lead to Kang’s other multiple identities: a senior NFT collector and an active participant in meme coins.
Culture Fanatic: Azuki was once a favorite, meme coins are a new asset class
As early as 2021, Mechanism Capital invested in the NFT project Kanon. The first sub-project launched by the project at that time was K21, a closed art machine gun pool that will provide liquid exposure to the works of 21 influential contemporary, digital and crypto artists, and by integrating DeFi, the artists The combination of creative motivation and investor returns will reshape funding, philanthropy, curatorial and custodial models.
In September 2022, Kang purchased Azuki#4978for 105 Ethereum (worth approximately $143,000 at the time) through the NFT trading market X2Y2.
In October 2022, Kang purchased Azuki#5558through the NFT trading market X2Y2, and the transaction price was 200 Ethereum.
In June 2023, according to data from the encrypted data monitoring platform Nansen, Kang held 299 Azuki and 580 Elementals, both ranking first in the total holdings of the relevant series. Additionally, he held 436 BEANZ at the time.
In March 2024, Kang purchased the original Pepe NFT originally owned by 3AC (Three Arrows Capital) through Sotheby's auction. This NFT was the first Pepe NFT authorized by the first Pepe creator Matt Furie. It was sold in April 2021. It was first sold for 420 Ethereum on October 17, and was subsequently acquired by Starry Night Capital, a subsidiary of 3AC, for 1,000 Ethereum on October 5, 2021.
Not only that, Kang also has a high opinion of meme coins and has made many purchases. He also changed his X platform account avatar to an IQ50 meme character picture before.
In February this year, Kang made a high-profile statement: Mechanism Capital, his crypto fund, had bet on Trump concept tokens and related NFTs. Subsequently, Nansen monitoring data showed that on January 19, the Mechanism Capital wallet was priced at a cost of approximately US$0.506. Bought 500,000 $TRUMP and then purchased another 23,900 $TRUMP on the same day. Among them, 136,200 $TRUMP were allocated to the Mechanism Capital wallet, 135,800 $TRUMP were sent to the wallet related to the Mechanism Capital team, and 58,400 $TRUMP were sent to the name of partner Marc Weinstein.
In March, Kang once again openly called for orders, saying that "meme coins have become the focus of global speculative liquidity. Compared with traditional equity, meme coins are now easier for global users to access. This is why Dogecoin has risen higher than The reason for the increase in Gamestop’s stock price is that the total market value of meme coins reached US$100 billion in the last cycle. The market value of each cycle usually increases multiple times. In addition to retail investors, HWN traders and hedge funds are gradually entering the market. In the future, There is still a long way to go.” Later, he said, “New funds will continue to buy meme coins” in order to obtain excess returns in the market, and boldly predicted: “Meme coins 2.0 or culture coins. ) will appear, targeting specific audiences/ideologies/groups of people. Each celebrity/KOL will have their favorite tokens to work with, and it will mainly be tokens that are not on CEX, meaning new USD will appear for on-chain purchases. A lot of $SOL tokens, just like the Ethereum and NFT season.”
Subsequently, the development of the market came true as expected. Popular Solana meme coins such as $BOME, $NAP, and $SLERF emerged one after another, and in conjunction with old projects such as $PEPE, $PEOPLE, $WIF, $BONK, and $FLOKI, the meme coin craze started. , and subsequent celebrity meme coin projects such as JENNER and MOTHER launched by pump.fun have also become examples.
At that time, unlike other market views, he spoke highly of meme coins: "Meme coins are not a zero-sum game, but a new asset class."
Conclusion: Investors who dare to make judgments are good traders
Looking back at Kang's past investment resume and social media platform posts, we can see a multi-role person who is very charismatic and dares to make judgments in complex market environments: He can not only respond to the market in a timely manner, but also Being able to provide corresponding analysis basis, and at the same time also personally advocate for investment projects and promising narrative tracks. It can be said that success from scratch to today's huge wealth is no accident.
It’s no wonder that in February, former ARK Invest crypto head and current Placeholder VC partner Chris Burniske expressed openness to Kang’s view that Bitcoin prices will hit a record high in March. And then, the market trend did so.
Of course, Kang's investment experience has not been smooth sailing along the way. For example, he established a position in $CELR in 2021 and proposed that "Layer 2 is not a winner-take-all industry." This view still seems to be highly forward-looking. Although The coin is now largely unknown, but there is much to learn from its perspective.
Kang uses his own personal experience to tell us that if you dare to express your views and make your own judgments, only in this way can you find your own "mechanical principles" in the turbulent crypto market and grow into a capital giant.
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reproduced with permission from: "PANews"
Original author: Odaily Planet Daily
