Author: Jack, BlockBeats

In the cryptocurrency world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to be a KOL. After the Chinese crypto community completed its migration to Twitter, the market and ordinary investors have come to demand KOLs who are knowledgeable, professional, and able to discover Alpha opportunities early. Under increasingly stringent market standards, crypto KOLs are experiencing a new round of elimination, with the older generation of KOLs gradually fading from the center of the stage, which also gives a new generation of powerful KOLs the opportunity to rise.

The powerful KOL we recently talked to is 0xSleepinRain. From a "cryptocurrency novice" to a Weibo celebrity, and then to running his own paid community, his growth trajectory is definitely an inspirational example of a grassroots retail investor's counterattack. Among a group of powerful players, 0xSleepinRain gives people the feeling of being a model student in the class, organizing and sharing his study notes every day. In his words, the secret of his success is "the early bird catches the worm."

From a Media Professional to a KOL

Morty studied mechanical engineering as an undergraduate, learning engineering technologies such as material forging and drawing design. In his own words, "I will probably work as a screwdriver in a factory after graduation." But as a science and engineering student, he has a lot of affinity with writing. From his gold rush adventures as a student, to his first job when he first entered the cryptocurrency circle, to his current daily work, they are all closely related to writing and content creation. It has to be said that in the current crypto industry, content leverage seems to be the most effective leverage.

New to the cryptocurrency world

During college, Morty discovered opportunities on content platforms such as Baijiahao, Toutiao, and Huoshan Video, so he and his classmates began to operate self-media accounts in batches and earned their first pot of gold. In fact, at the time, Douyin might have been a better choice, but because he was not good at making videos, Morty gave up this opportunity. Looking back now, this basically laid the foundation for his love of writing.

Morty graduated in 2018, and the platform bonus gradually faded. After realizing the limitations of the industry's prospects, he came to Hangzhou to look for opportunities. After submitting three or four resumes, Morty joined the crypto media Bibi News, and has been connected with crypto ever since. Once, he had the opportunity to interview Gavin Wood, who had just started Polkadot, and thought this person was very powerful, so he bought some DOT. Later, at an industry event in Shanghai, Morty received an invitation from the Cointelegraph Chinese team, so he sold his position without saying a word and came to Shanghai.

Before this, the daily tasks of the media were purely work for Morty, and he did not participate in cryptocurrency speculation. At the end of 2021, watching the DOT he sold rise from $5 to $60, Morty gradually realized that he could also try to speculate in cryptocurrency. "I have a life creed, which is to create memories. You can't go to work every day, you always have to do something."

BlockBeats: Which project had the greatest impact on you at that time?

Sleeping in the Rain: The one that had the greatest impact on me was Burger Swap, the first DEX on BSC. It rose from $0.5 to $27. At that time, I didn’t have much money, so I skipped a meal every day to buy BURGER. I bought a lot of BURGER at around $0.5, which was quite a lot for me at that time. Although it wasn’t a lot, I bought about 2,000U, and then sold half of it at around $7. Later, it rose to $27, but I didn’t sell it. Finally, it fell back to $7 before I sold all of it. I didn’t really understand it at the time. If I could go back to that time now, I would definitely do better.

BlockBeats: What other projects have had a greater impact on you?

Sleeping in the Rain: The ones that had the biggest impact on me might be Avalanche and Solana. Solana had the greatest impact. I bought SOL at around $35 to $45, sold 25% at $80, 25% at $100, and another 25% at $120, and sold all of them at $140. I didn’t expect it would eventually rise to $200.

I bought a position on Binance, but it was "519" after I bought it. When SOL fell to $26, I added some more positions. I remember that in the second half of that year, SOL was the first to rise, rising to $70 to $80, and then the market started to go crazy. Later, I also had ideas about Avalanche, because the foundation launched an Avalanche Rush and gave a lot of incentives, which I thought could attract the market's attention. But I completely missed Luna.

BlockBeats: The last round of crypto cycle was still dominated by "Weibo shouting". Most newcomers who entered the circle in 2021 or 2022 found it difficult to learn useful investment logic from "teachers who lead orders". How did you build your cognition?

Sleeping in the Rain: I met many noble people on my way to growth. For example, my former colleagues at Cointelegraph Chinese, my close friends at the end of 2022, and KOLs I met on Weibo/Twitter. They taught me a lot. For example, they made me understand something called information transmission.

For example, the information of the project party is at the A level, but it may be at the B level when it reaches the VC. If the project party wants to do something, the VC must be the first to know, and the retail investors are the last to know. And this transmission process may determine the price increase, so in the end the retail investors may be a "taking over process". In addition, they also made me realize that it is possible to make money by speculating in cryptocurrencies, which made me more interested in doing a lot of reading and thinking.

Building community

In the second half of 2021, Morty was still working at Cointelegraph Chinese. He had no idea of ​​becoming a KOL at first, but because he had always had the habit of writing, it seemed a waste to organize the information only for himself, so he shared it with everyone on social media. A year later, he became a well-known crypto KOL with more than 10,000 fans on Weibo.

In September 2022, a K-line analyst approached Morty, hoping to work with him to set up a paid group, but Morty thought he was not ready yet, so he spent time doing Notion and other preparatory work. Although the cooperation was not successful in the end, this incident gave Morty a good opportunity to build a community.

At the end of 2023, Morty completely left Weibo and partnered with his good partner Huang Mantou to start his own paid community. Huang Mantou and Morty were colleagues when they worked at Shenchao. Usually, one of them looked for information and the other did analysis. After the partnership, Huang Mantou was still responsible for finding Alpha information, while Morty analyzed the market and narrative. Since the end of last year, Morty's paid group has slowly increased from 200 to 300 people, and then to the current nearly 500 people. In his opinion, running a community has also made him a more confident person.

BlockBeats: How big does this community plan to be?

雨中狂睡: Judging from the number of group members, I may not recruit more than 500. If I were just cutting leeks, my community would not have this number of people. And I have been working on the community very seriously. I will post a lot of things I see and think are important in the group, and I will also post my personal investment operations.

BlockBeats: Can this kind of judgment bring you positive feedback?

Sleeping in the Rain: Yes, and I met a lot of interesting people when I was building the community, and they also gave me positive feedback. Although many group members paid to join the group, they also gave me a lot of new ideas, which I think is pretty cool. So it gave me more confidence and interest to do this well.

BlockBeats: Does running this community take a lot of energy?

Sleeping in the Rain: I am used to it. I will combine this with my own growth. In fact, building a community is also a process of personal growth. I think this is a very cool thing. For example, if you are doing reading, you will share your thoughts with the members of the community, and then many people will communicate with you. This kind of community feedback is actually a kind of information flow, including their current emotions, which I can also perceive. In fact, you have to observe and understand the market by yourself. It is actually difficult to trade without the market. I think this can help me very well and make me more closely connected with the market.

BlockBeats: In addition to your own community members, do you communicate frequently with other practitioners in the industry?

Sleeping in the Rain: There are some fixed people, some doing simple transactions, some doing hairballing, and some smart money. I like this kind of communication process, which makes me understand more, "So they look at the problem from this perspective." I think it's quite difficult to fight alone, and there will be an information cocoon in the mind. Now Twitter recommendations are actually cocoons, so I will expand my information flow by subscribing to emails and building Twitter Lists.

Cognitive construction and investment logic

Morty believes in the wisdom of the early bird. Whether it is BB News, Cointelegraph Chinese or Shenchao later, he tries to learn new things from others. "You must improve your cognition. In the end, your assets will definitely return to your cognitive curve." The experience in Cointelegraph and Shenchao gave Morty a lot of inspiration. He learned the two most important points. One is the transmission of information, and the second is to establish your own information flow.

BlockBeats: How do you build an effective information acquisition framework?

Sleeping in the Rain: I will habitually subscribe to content that I think is good. I have subscribed to many accounts on Substack by email, including a list I follow on X. There are many other people’s opinions here, and I will add my own thoughts and make some judgments.

In addition, I will organize the things I have been reading into a list. There is a project library, which is some of the projects I have read, and there are records of community meetings. Many articles that I think are good will also be put here. This method may not be good, but I think it can generate some thoughts and opinions. Although I publish these things to everyone, few people actually read them. In fact, it is equivalent to keeping a record of my own reading.

I also look at the market sentiment. For example, if some KOLs I follow say they don’t want to watch the market anymore, or if the community sentiment is bleak and no one is talking about the market, I think it may have reached the bottom range. However, I don’t look at too many purely trading aspects, which is also an aspect that I am relatively lacking in, that is, I don’t look at K-line and technical aspects very often.

BlockBeats: Do you think technical analysis is important in the current market environment?

Sleeping in the Rain: I think the key point is the effectiveness of the K-line. In this industry, in many cases, others draw the K-line for you to see. I can only say that the K-line is important, but not that important. If you can outperform Bitcoin purely by relying on the K-line, it is a bit unrealistic. In this highly PVP market, what is tested is your ability to select targets.

Because I have a partner who looks at K-lines, I will show him the K-lines after I find a target, and then choose a more ideal entry point, otherwise I might give up or wait a little longer, so that we can complement each other. I haven’t had much time to learn K-lines recently, but this is actually an excuse for my laziness.

BlockBeats: So reading is an important part of your cognitive development?

Sleeping in the Rain: Yes, I think there are two parts, reading and writing. For me, writing is the process of showing my thoughts. Of course, it is not required to write on social media, but you can write something and make a record, such as building a Notion, and then review these things regularly. My initial understanding of the industry came from the process of writing a knowledge base, from Bitcoin, public chains, DeFi to NFT, Gaming, etc., to build my own framework, and then branch out based on this framework.

I also have a small notebook. When I see some personal insights or insightful words, I will write them down in this notebook. This concept is actually very important. Everyone wants to make a lot of money, but the operation of having $100,000 is completely different from that of having $1 million. The final question to think about is definitely to make investment decisions based on the size of your own assets, and how to control risks and survive longer in the market than others. These records of insights and thoughts can help you.

BlockBeats: At the beginning of the year, you started summarizing the "star narrative" and later updated it every month. What is your logic and criteria for deciding the star rating?

Sleeping in the Rain: I think it mainly depends on the market's recognition, that is, the ability to attract market attention in the future. If the narrative has successfully attracted a lot of market attention, such as AI, then I will rate it higher.

I think Bitcoin has always been a five-star narrative. Inscriptions may be a short-term hype, but runes are better. They can help Bitcoin do more things. Although runes may have cooled down before, there will always be people who will promote them. The market will naturally pay attention to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Once a narrative emerges, people will participate.

But one narrative I didn’t get right at the beginning of the year was Solana. At the time, I ranked it as a four-star narrative, but now it seems that it is very strong in all aspects and is actually a five-star narrative.

BlockBeats: I saw that you later ranked it above Ethereum.

Sleeping in the Rain: I now understand that Ethereum is a very large asset. Europe and the United States are also pushing this point. It may be complicated, but its position is unshakable by Solana. I don’t know if Ethereum can be replicated, but you need time. From this perspective, I basically didn’t participate in Bitcoin L2, so why don’t I play on Ethereum or Solana? Of course, I think there are wealth opportunities here, because there is attention, and it is a long-term sustainable thing. As for Ethereum, BlackRock’s RWA is placed on Ethereum. Since BlackRock has done this, I will follow targets such as ONDO.

BlockBeats: Every time you share your spot trading ideas in the group, you will set a stop loss line. Where did the concept of "spot stop loss line" come from?

Sleeping in the Rain: Stop loss is more for the community. Each of us has different risk tolerance. For example, I can bear greater risks on some tokens, but you may not. One of my problems is that I am "very left-side". I have a high prediction of the trend of some coins that I am particularly optimistic about, which makes me feel uncomfortable holding many coins. For example, I think COW has a lot of opportunities under the intention narrative, so I have been holding it and I am not in a hurry. Also, WEN on Solana, this wave of retracement is because I am too diamond hands.

BlockBeats: What are your “left-side playing styles”?

Sleeping in the Rain: The catalyst for judging narratives. For example, I thought that the intentional narrative might rise around Cancun, so I bought UNI and COW. Of course, their final rise might not be due to this reason, and part of it was luck. In some stocks, luck might not be so good. I need to wait a long time to confirm my own logic, but if it has risen a lot before, and I believe that the catalyst I am waiting for has not come, then I will most likely not sell it. In this PVP market, narratives rotate very quickly, and diamond hands are also easily injured.

BlockBeats: In fact, many people did not have time to get off the market during the pullback in April, and almost no one thought that the bear market would last so long.

Sleeping in the Rain: In fact, the market has already told you that, for example, the six consecutive positive monthly lines of Bitcoin actually need a retracement. I thought I had a chance to leave at that time, but I still didn’t think clearly, which was also a mistake on my part.

BlockBeats: What haven’t you figured out?

Sleeping Crazy in the Rain: I didn’t think clearly about the need for a callback and how strong the callback might be, and I developed feelings for the altcoins.

Market Views

BlockBeats: What other hype do you think will be expected in this cycle?

Sleeping in the Rain: In addition to the expectation of liquidity returning after the rate cut, there are also macro expectations for the general election. Under this expectation, the demands of all parties should be stability and the competition for crypto voters. But if there is no new expectation support in the future, the market may enter a state of silence. Liquidity is not very good now. I will not be too optimistic. Of course, when liquidity returns, a new wave of opportunities will emerge. This is a very long-term thing.

BlockBeats: Well, every cycle is a little different, right?

Sleeping in the Rain: Yes, I think predictions are not important, we should think about what state the market is in. For example, on April 29, I thought the market had entered the bottom phase because I saw that the community was too pessimistic, and there was a feeling of a deep bear market. But think about it, this year is an election year, it is unlikely that there will be any major events, at least it should be stable.

There were too many people who were bearish at the time, so I thought I could buy some targets at the bottom. I chose Ethereum at that time, and also bought a lot of targets related to its ecosystem. Anyway, there was a stop-loss line, so if I made a wrong judgment, I would surrender.

BlockBeats: There is a lot of discussion about high FDV and low circulation. What do you think?

Sleeping in the Rain: I think this will bring about a new narrative, and the market will also look for tokens that are fully circulated, unlocked, and fully priced by the market. In fact, I have also read Cobie's article. His core point is that the market's buying actually occurs at the primary level, not at the secondary level, which may lead to the performance of new coins not being so good when they are launched.

In fact, there have been discussions on social media about "not taking over each other's orders" before. I think the important point is that this is a market problem, and the market will gradually realize it and improve it. I think the market may slowly grow into a smarter state, and in essence, it is actually insufficient market liquidity.

BlockBeats: Do you think the crypto market will see the same “super surge” as in the past few bull markets?

Sleeping in the Rain: I think there will be, because the cryptocurrency world gives us a chance to gamble. Although we cannot regularly build the cryptocurrency world into a casino, as GCR mentioned, many people participate in the cryptocurrency world because it is like a casino. It is more convenient than going to Macau, and the certainty of making money is (probably) higher than Macau. So the cryptocurrency world and altcoins will not die out. As long as there is market demand, it will always exist, and there will be people who make a fuss based on altcoins.

BlockBeats: Which direction will you focus on in the next period of time?

Sleeping in the Rain: My main position is Ethereum now. For example, Pendle is my long-term position. I mentioned this in my May Outlook. Of course, I put ETH relatively late when I wrote it. In addition, AI was also put relatively late. First, there are many catalysts recently, and second, the overall market is very anti-human. When everyone is optimistic about AI, its performance is not good, and those optimistic people need to be washed out.

I also have some Solana holdings, but I generally don’t actively buy them. I also wrote the main task of Solana in the group name, which is to accumulate the coin base in hand. Participate more in the Solana ecosystem, everything is for the growth of the SOL coin base in hand.

BlockBeats: Last question, how long do you think it will take for the altcoin market to return to its original price level?

Sleeping in the Rain: I am still optimistic about the market outlook, especially Ethereum, which has a chance to break new highs. After the expectations are exhausted, I will choose to rest.