How to consistently win at MEME?
@Michael_Liu93 Mai's secret is eight words: find strong stakeholder markets, eat the second wave.
After reading these practical MEME trading principles, making a lot of money is actually very simple (contains 💰 password).
This is the 22nd issue recap of #Dialogue with 100 Traders, continuously updated, welcome to follow.
Mai's MEME journey: after a five-minute hundredfold profit, began to become addicted to MEME.
Before getting involved in Crypto, Mai took a very "orthodox" financial path: studying finance in university, then working as a banker on the sell side, and later moving to the buy side. On the buy side, he was looking at the enterprise service sector, where many blockchain founders wanted to do BAAS, which is Blockchain as a Service, and through this opportunity, he saw this new technology.
By 2020 and 2021, Mai officially entered the Crypto industry, managing some secondary positions for traditional financial industry bosses, mainly in Bitcoin. Since then, he has begun to spend a lot of time every day researching new things and looking for Alpha.
And in this cycle, the Alpha, Mai firmly believes, is MEME, so he personally spends 60% to 70% of his time on MEME, also involving various traditional financial industry bosses to join in the fun.
Being addicted to MEME originated from a transaction that yielded a hundredfold profit in just five minutes.
At that time, the market was speculating on Musk's signature, and Mai had taken positions in Long Yi TROLL and Long Er ZUZALU. Which coin will become the Long San? Mai and his friends think that V God’s signature might have speculative potential, so they bought TCATI (Green Tea), a cat-themed MEME, based on a signature in V God’s X account profile.
About five minutes after buying, this coin suddenly surged to a market cap of about one to two million, instantly transforming several hundred dollars of position into thirty to forty thousand dollars.
This was actually Mai's first real contact with MEME. Although the hundredfold profit only recovered the principal, this trading experience made him feel that "MEME is really fun."
Then he started spending more time studying MEME, understanding MEME, and trading MEME, gradually developing his own trading strategy.
Why is a strong stakeholder market more fun?
PVP market is a typical game of mutual non-achievement, where everyone is actually competing to discover a trend first or create a trend and take the bottom chips, then cover everyone when they feel it is a high position and leave with profits.
The stakeholder market is actually a game of mutual achievement between retail investors and stakeholders. During the lifecycle of a MEME, if the stakeholder wants to raise the market cap, they want to list on Binance, they need to use their funds to find callers, accumulate chips, wash chips, pull the market, create advertisements/messages, and drive trends.
If a stakeholder is good at doing these things, it means they are skilled at storytelling, have a significant amount of capital, and have various relationships with callers and exchanges. This situation can be a win-win for both retail investors and stakeholders.
How can we judge if a market is a stakeholder market?
Mai provided a perspective: observe if there is intentional wash behavior in wallets, that is, maintaining the same price range for the same asset, buying and selling quickly within a few seconds. The purpose of stakeholders washing wallets includes:
Can be marked as a new wallet by tools like GMGN.
Dissipate chips to prepare for market pulling.
However, as tool providers reveal more and more information, the methods employed by stakeholders are also constantly changing. This is good news for retail investors because stakeholders need to collect chips, and there will be more time to prepare for market pulling, allowing retail investors more time to identify which stakeholder markets are impressive.
How do stakeholders on Solana operate a MEME?
Early stage: accumulating chips in the internal market, launching on the Pump.
Because of the market's "anti-staking" sentiment after the capitalization of NEIRO, the stakeholder would hide themselves in the early stages, making MEME a project supposedly initiated by the community, and during this process, they would start accumulating chips.
In the process of accumulating chips in the internal market, the biggest enemy of the stakeholder is the Bot. There are now many Bots checking the Pump's internal market Volume. Once a new wallet's purchase (5-10 SOL) is detected, they will follow up immediately.
Once enough chips are accumulated, generally over 75%, they will launch on the Pump.
Medium term: push volume in rounds.
First wave: launch. Find some Tier 3 and Tier 2 callers, while having your market makers cooperate, pushing the market cap to the range of 5 million to 20 million, then quickly dump.
Second wave: explosive rise. Deploy the funds harvested from the first wave of dumping, usually using all funds, market making, while finding Tier 1 callers to shout orders, and pull up, making it so everyone can't get cheaper chips.
Later stage: listing on exchanges.
Whether it can be listed on exchanges, such as Binance, actually depends on fate, and stakeholders are also watching fate. If the listing goes smoothly, the valve of liquidity opens, and the subsequent operations align with the secondary market.
The market making after listing is usually operated by wintermute.
BAN and AI16Z are two typical 'stakeholder markets': stakeholders have gone through a very long accumulation phase in the early stages, made the first big rise, then dumped, collected enough funds for subsequent market making, and continued to accumulate chips at the bottom before directly pulling up in the second wave.
How to get into a strong stakeholder market?
There are two strategies:
First, after the first wave ends, buy before the second wave pulls up.
At this stage, the stakeholder is continuously accumulating chips at the bottom. If you find traces of their accumulation (mainly by observing wallets), you can follow up and buy.
Second, after the second wave starts, chase decisively.
At this stage, the stakeholder is likely to find Tier 1 callers to cooperate with the funds accumulated from the first wave of dumping, quickly pushing up the market cap and seeking a listing. Generally, once the second wave starts, a real strong stakeholder will rarely allow the price to pull back even a little, making it difficult for retail investors to get on board. Therefore, if it is observed that the second wave has started and has exceeded the first wave in growth, one can chase and buy at a high.
Understand MEME through the logic of short videos.
In May, when I was chatting with Zepump about MEME during the #Dialogue with Traders, he mentioned a point that MEME to VC coins is like short videos to long videos. Mai also agrees with this logic and explained the "commonalities" between short videos and MEME from the aspects of 'demand hierarchy' and 'evolutionary path.'
First, let's talk about the hierarchy of demand.
Why do everyone, especially post-00s, enjoy scrolling through short videos and MEME every day? Because they satisfy their deepest desires.
Short videos satisfy lust and the so-called "laziness." Because young people's time is fragmented, and their entertainment time is very limited, they can only gain very brief happiness through scrolling Douyin.
MEME satisfies greed. Today's young people generally feel that the threshold for wealth elevation is too high, so they are eager to take a gamble (to get rich quickly).
Let's talk about the evolutionary path.
Short videos initially focused on UGC, user-generated content, but later you find that not many people watch UGC anymore; everyone is watching PGC because the quality of PGC is better.
In MEME, everyone was initially very naive as CTOs, but later found that stakeholder markets are more fun, as they pull the market up high, because they are fundamentally strong in operations and have considerable financial strength.
Ultimately, both short videos and MEME are part of a market that is very much focused on attention economics.
In the super cycle of MEME, which coin will become the 'new king'?
Mai firmly believes that MEME has already been confirmed as a long-cycle affair. When we look back two years from now at today’s MEME market, most may have already disappeared, but those that can sustain themselves will undoubtedly be more, and there will definitely be a MEME that is more impressive than SHIB, and this MEME is likely already in the market.
Which coin is likely to become this 'new king'?
First: $DOGE
The true leader in the MEME sector, the 'BTC' of MEME, DOGE is likely to be listed on the ETF after Trump takes office.
Second: $PEPE
The brilliance of PEPE lies in its early emergence and in its logic, which many Chinese people cannot comprehend. In fact, the projects that emerged on Ethereum are basically derivatives of PEPE, which has already become a consensus. It’s quite challenging to find a MEME in this current cycle that has such a strong consensus as PEPE.
Third: $WIF
Fourth: $POPCAT
$WIF VS $POPCAT, Mai believes the latter is more promising. In fact, there is an interesting point about WIF and POPCAT: although WIF has a market cap twice that of POPCAT, their pools are the same.
Currently, fewer people in foreign communities and conspiracy groups are discussing WIF, as attention has shifted to POPCAT, which may also imply a change in capital preference.
What callers should you pay attention to in order to play MEME well?
Abroad:
Murad @MustStopMurad, Crash @CrashiusClay69, Mitch @idrawline, OverDose @Overdose_AI, Moneylord @moneyl0rd, Ansem @blknoiz06, Spidercrypto @SpiderCrypto0x
Chinese region:
First: Wizard @0xcryptowizard
The Wizard is a Builder. Following his car feels relatively stable because he continues to build, and the projects he builds are all very well-positioned.
Second: magnolia @0xmagnolia
Sister Hat has written a lot of valuable content, teaching everyone how to find MEME and how to win in this game. Moreover, Sister Hat often has a strong ability to catch trends, so she can serve as a good reference for where a trend might be ongoing.
Third: Timo @timotimoqi
Timo is a friend of Mai in real life, originally an investor, so their trading perspectives might be quite similar. The tweet about the eight questions to ask oneself before buying MEME comes from Timo. Recently, Timo might have called five or six projects, three of which have skyrocketed over a hundred times.
Lastly, I want to say that there is a problem with callers: they might be good a month ago, but a month later, they could be bad. For example, this person POE, who previously posted very well, exploded in popularity over a month ago and has since started calling various rug pulls to cut leeks.
Although you don’t know what exactly is happening behind the scenes, the lesson is: when looking at callers, you must look at the overall picture comprehensively. It’s still analogous to short videos; he’s just someone who recommends videos to you, not someone who makes you like them. The right to like must remain in your own hands.
Written at last
I think the core of playing MEME is to find a stage and trading method that fits within your capability. In fact, no matter when you enter the market, you can always find your opportunity in MEME. This is the most interesting aspect of MEME in this cycle.