Interview: Arain, ChainCatcher
Guest: 0x Wizard
Organized by: Arain, ChainCatcher
0x Wizard is a cryptocurrency KOL on X with nearly 200,000 followers, known as the "Meme Wizard."
Meme can be said to be a main line running through this bull market cycle, even if some people find it emotionally hard to admit.
"Bravely participate in the second wave of opportunities" is the principle of 0x Wizard. Taking into account the ground-up market recognition and the thinking on essential reasons, he believes that although the bull market has started, on-chain Meme is actually just beginning.
"In the future, a billion-dollar Meme can still produce 500 more, but it may be difficult to see another 50 billion-dollar asset." In an interview with ChainCatcher, 0x Wizard stated. However, the primary gameplay and secondary gameplay of Memes are entirely different. For some high-valued Meme projects that are about to flow into the secondary market, he recommends observing before building a position.
In the interview, 0x Wizard also shared his methodology for capturing new tracks and new narrative judgments, including the "three laws of the bull market engine" and the essence of tracks. He discussed several currently popular AI Meme and Meme investment experiences.
The following is the content of the interview:
Product origins make me more adept at the new narrative track and primary and secondary investments.
ChainCatcher: What was your job before entering the cryptocurrency space?
0x Wizard: I worked as a product manager in an internet company, participating in some B-end and C-end product designs. Later, I started my own business, creating internet-related products. In 2017, I noticed the emerging field of cryptocurrency starting to show a unique development trend, and I had friends discussing related topics. Coupled with my own interest and optimism about its development potential, I officially entered the cryptocurrency space.
Due to my past work experience, I am relatively skilled at judging new tracks and narratives, as well as primary and secondary investments. I believe the choice of a track and its inclination is fundamentally consistent with doing internet products. However, it is not about directly applying the previous product approach to cryptocurrency investments; rather, there are many commonalities. For instance, when creating products, one must look at whether users genuinely need it, rather than just subjectively thinking it's good. It is essential not to fall into the error of designing based on top-down imagination; one must see whether the market recognizes it. The same goes for investing in the cryptocurrency space; the key to judging whether a new track or project is viable is to see the market's acceptance level. For example, in the AI track, many targets with valuations exceeding one billion dollars have emerged in both the primary and secondary markets, indicating that the market has practically recognized it as a trend. Therefore, my investment approach tends to lean towards understanding and observing the real choices of the market.
ChainCatcher: Please share your most successful and most failed investment in the cryptocurrency world.
0x Wizard: There are quite a few successful investment cases. When I first got into the space, I was playing on-chain games and algorithmic stablecoins, and I made about 100 times the return in nearly a month. Later, I participated in projects like ORDI, where large capital investments also yielded around ten times the return, and there were projects like ACT that generated nearly a hundred times the return.
Major setbacks leave a deep impression. Therefore, I suggest everyone to avoid leveraging in the cryptocurrency space, whether it's contract leverage or regular leverage. Leverage is a source of the significant setbacks I encountered. Sometimes, the greedy side of human nature comes out, or the unwillingness to accept profit withdrawals leads to the desire to quickly recover losses, prompting oneself to leverage or engage in contract trading.
Every detour may be a must for investors to go through; one has to personally experience it to truly understand what should and shouldn’t be done in investing through the ups and downs.
ChainCatcher: Some tracks may be pseudo-propositions; what is your main basis for judging a track?
0x Wizard: On one hand, it is crucial to look at market recognition from the ground up. As I mentioned earlier, one cannot just subjectively imagine that a certain track is good; one must see the market's real reaction. For example, the AI track has many related targets with valuations exceeding one billion dollars in both the primary and secondary markets, which shows that the market practically recognizes it as a trend, making it likely worth paying attention to.
On the other hand, one must also think about the most essential reasons behind the track. For instance, what the cryptocurrency space fundamentally does and which elements are its most successful underlying parts. From these angles, one can measure whether a track can work. In terms of cryptocurrency assets, I have summarized several judgment "axioms," encapsulating them as the "three laws of the bull market engine" —
"Old technology, new gameplay": An old saying goes, "Long slope and thick snow"; one should see whether this technology has enough underlying accumulation. On-chain assets actually rely on the advantages accumulated from previous infrastructures like DeFi, which provides a basis for development.
"New tracks, new hopes": If it's a completely new concept, the market's upper valuation ceiling for it will be greater. Just like the previous metaverse concept, even if the products might not meet traditional internet standards, the introduction of new trends and hopes can still lead to a high market cap during a bull market. For instance, in the 2020-2021 bull market, projects like SAND, despite having poor products, saw significant market cap growth due to new trends and hopes.
"Batch generation of new assets": A single profitable asset is hard to create a shocking force; only if many related assets can profit will there be a strong attraction. If different on-chain projects can make investors profitable, it will attract more people to participate.
Considering the market recognition from the ground up and thinking about the essential reasons, it is not easy to judge the track wrongly. Even if there are occasional setbacks, they are temporary situations on small branches and do not affect the judgment of the larger trend.
ChainCatcher: You just mentioned the "most essential reasons"; do these essential reasons point to the same place?
0x Wizard: The answer to this question lies in "What exactly is cryptocurrency doing?" I believe it is primarily doing the following several things because it does these things "ten times better" — there is a startup methodology in Silicon Valley that states if something is ten times better than others, it has a reason to be adopted, which can lead to significant success.
First is asset issuance. In traditional industries, asset issuance faces many legal, compliance, and procedural problems, making it extremely difficult. For example, engaging in asset-related matters domestically can easily involve illegal areas. Even with the New Third Board or NASDAQ, transforming a company into an asset is challenging. However, in the cryptocurrency space, asset issuance is very convenient, and the speed far exceeds that of traditional industries. Various unique things can quickly be converted into assets. Although there may be a lot of garbage assets, this rapid asset issuance capability brings inherent activity to the cryptocurrency space. From ICO to DeFi, inscriptions, on-chain assets, and so on are all manifestations of asset issuance.
Secondly, regulatory arbitrage. I remember a very interesting project, which is a Web3 project in Nigeria. Nigerians purchase shopping cards through Crypto in the US and send them back home to their families. Although the intermediary fees can be as high as 10-20%, they are still willing to do so because Crypto provides a way to circumvent Nigeria's foreign exchange controls.
Thirdly, speculative demand is dominant. Speculation is an important part of the inherent demand in the cryptocurrency space, similar to the stock industry, where speculation is a neutral term. The cryptocurrency space has formed a global casino that operates 24 hours a day, where people constantly engage in speculative trading, such as trading Shiba Inu coins, leveraging speculation (R), and operations based on Ethereum's POS, all serving speculation. During the last bull market, DeFi's TVL and transaction fees grew rapidly, but declined during the bear market, indicating that the real occurrences in DeFi are more around speculative demand rather than the previously anticipated world-changing, traditional financial asset movement to the blockchain. The income scale of zero-sum games in the business model established in the cryptocurrency space is enormous (for example, BI's income approaching BN level), also indicating the dominant position of speculation in the cryptocurrency space.
In the future, there may be 500 billion-dollar Meme projects worth focusing on in AI Meme.
ChainCatcher: You previously mentioned that Meme has become a new main line in this bull market. What expectations do you have from the primary and secondary markets?
0x Wizard: From the perspective of the secondary market, Meme trends will definitely have peaks and valleys, basically following the larger market trend. The specific rise and fall are actually very hard to predict accurately; I have made quite a few forecasting errors in the past. For example, I originally thought Meme should rally first, but in reality, projects like XRP, according to the previous round of experience, saw rallying at the tail end of the market, whereas this time it started rallying right after Trump was elected.
However, it can be confirmed that it will certainly rally, and afterwards it is highly likely to drop, with declines possibly reaching 80% or even 90%, which is a fairly common situation. During the rally, the market cap of some Meme coins could potentially reach tens of billions of dollars, or even over a hundred billion dollars.
From the perspective of the primary market, I believe the Meme trend does not care about bull or bear markets; it will always exist. Even before a bull market, we can see Meme projects with market caps of hundreds of millions of dollars, or even billions of dollars, emerging continuously. While it has its own small cycles, it won't exhibit a clear bull or bear cycle like the large market; it just may perform more crazily during a bull market. In the future, it's possible to see, for example, 500 Meme projects with market caps over a billion dollars; even if a single project’s market cap isn't particularly high, perhaps in the tens of billions or a hundred billion, the on-chain capacity suggests that Meme projects with market caps between one billion to twenty billion are quite likely. This situation is already happening across different chains, such as Solana and Base.
Due to the limited market cap space of on-chain Meme, if its price is relatively high before listing, it is advisable to wait until it circulates to the secondary market and buy in after the price adjusts because the secondary market has a larger valuation space, while the high valuation in the primary market may struggle to support subsequent increases due to insufficient liquidity.
ChainCatcher: Why are you so keen on promoting AI Meme?
0x Wizard: First, investment in the cryptocurrency space relies on imagination. In the past, assets that were hyped in the cryptocurrency space had to have sufficient imagination. Like the previous DeFi, the narrative was about a revolution in traditional finance, and the NFT and metaverse concepts claimed everyone would live in a virtual world in the future. These stories were particularly imaginative. But now, everyone has basically understood NFTs, and the metaverse hasn't worked out even for Facebook. For DeFi to take root, it must present actual data. Currently, I think the most imaginative thing in the cryptocurrency space is AI; it's hard for anything else to have such appeal.
Secondly, AI has actual value. Just like DeFi has real trading happening, with TVL (Total Value Locked) data reflecting its value, AI is the same. Some AI agent projects are already generating income, like Virtuals; there are many AI projects being widely used, such as ai16z; some AI projects have already gained considerable traffic, like ACT and GOAT Meme projects. Some AI agents, as knowledge aggregators, have already outperformed many human efforts by integrating corpora to serve everyone — this is actually an enhancement of productivity, not just empty slogans; it can be seen in action and brings changes to cryptocurrency.
Therefore, AI in the cryptocurrency space has both imagination and practicality, and the practical aspects can further drive more applications to take root. Based on this, I believe AI is the biggest trend in the cryptocurrency industry in 2025, without a doubt; other trends are not on the same level.
ChainCatcher: You have mentioned the ecology of the ACT project multiple times; can you share your unique understanding of it?
0x Wizard: ACT has a relatively unique ecological niche. It is a Meme that appeared at a specific time, representing a tokenization of the future concept of AI. It promotes support for certain AI agents, allowing them to try more innovations, and brings them together on platforms like ACT swap, where everyone can interact with them through tokenization by inputting prompts in one interface. This entire process is a very interesting presentation of the fusion of AI, Crypto, and social media, representing a highly imaginative form of AI development in this area.
Moreover, ACT is currently the only AI Meme project listed on major centralized exchanges, giving it a significant advantage. Even if other AI Meme projects like GOAT, AI16Z, and Virtuals are also listed on secondary exchanges in the future, I believe ACT will still be one of the most important targets. After all, in this circle, everyone develops together, is recognized by the market together, and gains more liquidity together, resulting in better overall performance. As the saying goes, "A solitary traveler speeds, but a group traveler goes far." Therefore, in summary, ACT has a unique position and importance in the AI Meme field.
ChainCatcher: Besides ACT, are there any other projects in the AI Meme space that you are optimistic about and can share?
0x Wizard: GOAT is a project that initiated the heat in this track early on and has formed a certain consensus; people generally recognize it. Additionally, there are platform projects like ai16z and Virtuals, with a large number of AI agents using them for production and other operations, which are also worth paying attention to.
The advantage of platform-type projects lies in the network effect; once they form a scale and influence, it becomes difficult for others to challenge them. Other standalone AI agent projects will face fiercer competition, with a faster iteration speed and relatively lower moats.
So if you want to make a relatively safe investment, projects like ACT, GOAT, as well as ai16z and Virtuals would be good considerations.
The differences in Meme primary and secondary gameplay are enormous; ordinary investors are not suitable for hot projects.
ChainCatcher: What are the specific different strategies needed for participating in Meme investments in the primary and secondary markets? Can you share your methodology?
0x Wizard: When participating in Meme investments in the primary market, it is crucial to focus on the market cap situation. One must rely on experience to judge at what market cap level it is suitable to participate and at what stage it is appropriate to join. For example, if certain valuable targets drop from over a billion market cap to between 25 million and 30 million, with a decline of about 80%, if it meets one's investment expectations and "strike zone," one can consider buying a small position. The chip accumulation process for targets in the primary market is relatively quick, possibly taking only a few days or a week. As long as the main players haven't sold off, there is a possibility of a rally in the future, which will coincide with narratives and community heat rising, and secondary rallies may occur. Even if it drops after the rally, it may start again later.
In the secondary market, one must conform to chip logic; investors need to learn the gameplay of the secondary market, such as Wyckoff theory and other technical analysis methods. You don't have to be an expert, but you can't be completely ignorant. Otherwise, it’s easy to panic due to price fluctuations and not understand the reasons behind them. The secondary market has a chip accumulation process, which is the accumulation phase, and only after this phase is completed will it enter the distribution process.
Additionally, the secondary market places great importance on the hype of new assets and new concepts. Taking the AI track as an example, after a large number of AI agent projects emerged, targets like ACT could very likely see explosive market behavior in the secondary market, given various factors. Compared to projects like Virtuals and ai16z that are nearing a billion-dollar market cap, they have limited capital capacity in the primary market, and their potential for further doubling in the secondary market is relatively small. Therefore, one should comprehensively consider these factors to understand and grasp the investment logic of the secondary market.
ChainCatcher: You mentioned that investors should learn to distinguish between potential targets and hot projects, so what indicators can help us differentiate between the two?
0x Wizard: I believe the following aspects can be observed and judged.
First, it is the narrative of the target itself and the community status. On the narrative level, for example, some AI-related projects have innovative AI encrypted interaction modes or represent unique trends, making such narratives relatively outstanding. On the community level, it is essential to pay attention to whether loyal fans continue to build when prices drop, engage in secondary creation daily, and remain active on various platforms. Furthermore, the community cannot be limited to either Chinese or English; both Chinese and English communities need to have enthusiasm for the subsequent development limit to be higher. The narrative and community can be seen as basic elements for judgment.
Secondly, it is the capital aspect. One should pay attention to the chip situation, judging whether the main players have profited and left, passing the chips to major players. Some chip analysis methods can be used, such as checking whether the front row consists of all large losses; if so, this target may find it difficult to rise again. If the main players still hold many unmovable chips, it indicates they have the motivation to continue collecting chips and conduct secondary rallies. By integrating the trends, community status, and the capital chip situation mentioned earlier, one can roughly judge whether a target is a potential one.
Overall, hot projects are more suitable for professional investors who can participate early with sufficient energy and invest tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, selling for profit once the value rises to a certain level, like "P Xiaojian" type investors. They are good at participating in the first wave of trends from the internal market to the rising popularity. But for most ordinary investors, it is advisable to focus more on potential targets, of course, this needs to be judged in conjunction with one's actual situation.
ChainCatcher: In your investment process in the cryptocurrency space, you must need to master a large amount of information to assist in decision-making. Can you share some useful information sources?
0x Wizard: I have a rather diverse range of information sources. Firstly, data websites like GMGN release popular target rankings daily, covering various Memes and other related content. I recommend checking at least twice a day, recording newly emerging targets, and then observing their subsequent rise and fall, changes in chip structure, and combining this with their trends and community situations to make comprehensive judgments on whether to invest; this point is crucial.
Secondly, there are some tools. Some tools can push hot BOTs, while others will recommend dozens of related information daily. Of course, users need to have the energy to filter and check in Telegram.
Furthermore, there are forwarding groups, like the domestic Alpha group, where you can understand what topics people are focusing on and discussing. Twitter is also crucial; follow those who frequently share insights in the cryptocurrency space and participate in various projects, but you need to filter and select tweets from those you think are reliable and valuable references. Additionally, people can form their own small circles to find like-minded peers for discussion, as the saying goes, "Many hands make light work," which can speed up information acquisition. In summary, by comprehensively utilizing these channels, there will generally be no shortage of information.
ChainCatcher: How do you filter and assist in investment decisions when faced with a large amount of information?
0x Wizard: This is indeed a key issue. When there is an abundance of information, filtering becomes crucial. First, it must be evaluated in conjunction with one's investment goals and risk tolerance. For example, some information may seem very enticing, but if the corresponding investment risk exceeds what one can bear, it must be considered with caution.
In terms of the information obtained about the targets, as I mentioned earlier, one should analyze whether its narrative is innovative, whether it has development potential, whether the community is active and cohesive, ensuring both Chinese and English communities are considered. Additionally, the capital chip situation must be considered. One shouldn't blindly follow what others say is good; it is essential to have one's judgment logic.
When practically applying, one must understand that investment carries risks. Even if a lot of information collection and analysis is done in the early stages, mistakes may still occur. I recommend that when starting to invest, one can try with a small portion of funds, treating it as a tuition fee to gain experience. Once one becomes gradually familiar and confident, they can adjust their investment strategy. At the same time, one should clarify their investment style, knowing which types of investments they are suitable for. For example, hot projects are suitable for professional investors who have the energy to participate early, like "P Xiaojian" (referring to early players in Meme PVP, where early Memes had very low market caps and were just released internally). They can profit in the first wave of trends, but ordinary investors may be more suited to focus on potential targets. Ultimately, it still needs to be judged based on one's actual situation.