Part 1: Corporate Escapee Dives into Crypto’s Rabbit Hole

Q: How did your family react when you left Meta for memes and crypto? What’s their view on meme coins?

Justin: I’m more of a crypto degen than your typical “corporate escapee.” My crypto journey predates Meta – I joined specifically to gain technical expertise and team management skills while their crypto division (including Libra veterans and Move language developers) was still active.

When the bear market hit and Meta axed all blockchain projects, I kept converting salaries and stocks into crypto while experimenting with DeFi, NFTs, and memes after hours.

In 2023, we organized NYC’s first major Chinese-led Blockchain+AI conference featuring top projects – crucial preparation for my full-time crypto plunge.

My family operates on “enthusiastic confusion.” My dad religiously tracks crypto news and excitedly asks “Did you buy any?” whenever Doge or Trump coins trend. Adorable crypto-curiosity.

Q: Did they support going all-in on crypto?

Justin: Initial hesitation was natural – leaving Meta’s golden handcuffs for volatility isn’t for the faint-hearted. But you can’t chase alpha while clinging to stability. After explaining crypto’s long-term thesis, they backed my decision. My dad even asked me to custody Bitcoin for him.

Q: Are you profitable in meme investing? How do peers view this?

Justin: Net positive, but losses outnumber wins. My strategy: Heavy bets on conviction plays like 2023’s Pepe, 2024’s Degen, and 2025’s Trump. Even if 90% of memes die, the 10% moonshots compensate.

Most friends “shotgun invest” across trending memes – they might hit 100x but diluted positions lead to mediocre returns plus a graveyard of dead coins.

Q: Any rookie mistakes before mastering memes?

Justin: Meme investing is multidisciplinary – requiring cultural fluency, emotional intelligence, and brutal self-awareness. My key lesson: The market has infinite ways to bankrupt you.

Part 2: Meme Market Realities

Q: CZ’s dog-post ignited BNB chain memes. Your take?

Justin: CZ tried capitalizing on chain activity trends but botched the execution. By not designating an official “Broccoli” version, he spawned hundreds of copycats that drained liquidity and burned retail.

Short-term marketing win, long-term trust erosion. Meme success hinges on profit – when users lose money, backlash follows.

Q: Can BNB chain memes rebound?

Justin: Potential exists but requires infrastructure upgrades. Solana/Base achieved transaction fluidity through iterative improvements – BNB’s current sluggishness (Pancake lag, wallet crashes, high slippage) undermines user experience.

Moreover, BNB needs to find its breakout point, not just copy other chains’ successes. Solana has Pump.fun, which standardizes meme coin issuance, aggregates liquidity, and drives the trading tool ecosystem. BNB needs something similar. I think AI could be one direction, especially AI applications, where the Chinese community excels. If they can create an AI-based “Pump.fun,” it could revitalize the whole ecosystem.

Q: What do you think about the situation with Argentina’s President Milei endorsing a meme coin, then rug-pulling it?

Justin: Milei probably saw the hype around Trump and other celebrity coins and thought he could leverage Crypto to boost Argentina’s economy and raise funds for private enterprises. He might have even been offered a revenue share by the KIP team. But he didn’t anticipate the massive backlash when the coin price crashed, leading him to delete his tweets and distance himself from the incident.

Q: How do Crypto traders or VCs around you view this?

Justin: Many on-chain experts and founders lost big, at least $10 million in total. They were angry at Milei’s tweet deletion because the endorsement of a national leader encouraged them to take large positions. But Crypto is a casino; every piece of information influences decisions. The key is whether you can predict and react to new information. For example, when Milei deleted his tweet, did you choose to cut losses or add to your position?

The most important thing is that traders can’t let “loss aversion” cloud their judgment. When something unexpected happens, like Milei deleting his tweet, they must remain calm and decide whether to add to their position or stop losses. In the end, you’re buying your own decisions.

Q: Do you think “national-level endorsements” will become the new normal in meme coin markets?
Justin: If 3 to 4 national-level meme coins follow a pattern of “launch, surge—crash to zero,” then this strategy won’t last. Those who lost money won’t re-invest, and other countries won’t dare to try it.

For meme coins to have long-term viability, they must find an economic model and gameplay that can sustain them. Otherwise, they will end up like NFTs—popular for a while but then collapse.

Part 3: How should regular users play with meme coins?

Q: Many meme coin investors say they “know it’s gambling, but can’t help but dive in.” What do you think of this mentality?

Justin: Meme coins give people the thrill of a “grassroots comeback,” which is similar to the mechanism that attracts people to casinos, but the volatility of meme coins far surpasses that of casinos, making even casinos seem boring in comparison. While most people end up losing, stories of 100x or 1000x returns still make people believe “I could be the next to get rich.” Even when they lose, they keep going because FOMO (fear of missing out) is at play.

But just diving in isn’t enough; diving in with strategy is the key to lasting longer. Real traders carefully choose targets with a higher probability of success, rather than going all-in on any meme they see. Also, having a clear profit-taking and stop-loss strategy ensures you’re not swayed by market emotions.

Q: If I were a regular investor, how would I identify which meme coins have potential and which ones are just designed to “scam” people?

Justin: Due to time constraints, I don’t often have the luxury to sit in front of the computer and continuously monitor newly launched meme coins during their early stages. So, I prefer to focus on meme coins with longer life cycles, ones that last more than just a few hours. This requires analyzing the narrative, token distribution, risk-reward ratio, and whether the coin has viral potential in social media.

• Narrative
  When assessing a narrative, I think there are two key points: the number of people it reaches and the depth of resonance. First, we need to check whether the narrative can touch a large enough audience; second, does it resonate deeply with those people? If the narrative is too niche, although it’s not necessarily bad, it has limited potential for mass spread. On the other hand, widely recognized IPs may not always be suitable for memes because they might not trigger strong enough resonance or recognition. Both factors are equally important.
• Token Distribution
  You need to assess whether there are any signs of manipulation in the project. Typically, any whale wallets will appear in the Top 100, so I focus on digging into the Top 100 addresses, paying special attention during periods of consolidation when manipulators are most likely accumulating tokens.

Market-making wallets are important to observe for trading frequency, as their purpose is to sell at high prices, buy back for accumulation, and gradually raise the floor price while liquidating retail investors.

Trade volume is another useful metric. I usually use volume market cap to determine whether the project is being manipulated. If this value consistently stays above 1, it indicates that the market makers are still in control.

Address tracking: Whenever I identify a manipulated project, I save the addresses for future reference, much like tracking smart money.

• Risk-Reward Ratio
  Based on your narrative assessment, you need to set a target price for the token. For example, PNUT might represent a narrative at the $1B level, while Trump might represent a $100B-level narrative. By comparing the current market cap and your target price, you can determine if it’s worth investing and how much to invest. For instance, I recently assessed a narrative called Dogshit2. I think it could reach a $100M market cap, but it’s currently only at $2M, which gives it a 50x potential for growth. Therefore, I decided to invest a certain amount based on my judgment.
• Virality
  You need to quickly assess who’s following this token on Twitter and how their network of followers might spread the word. Analyzing potential communities or key opinion leaders (KOLs) who might start talking about it in the future is essential. Tools like Katio or The1 can help you analyze KOL influence and assess virality.
  Many meme experts have compiled great investment advice. I suggest checking out the “From $0 to $10M Meme Guide” written by GMGN and blockchain experts. It contains a lot of deep analysis on how to choose meme targets and strategies for profit-taking and stop-loss. It’s a very useful reference.

Q: How do you assess a meme project yourself? Do you set “profit-taking” or “stop-loss” rules?
Justin: I break down meme investment into several stages: Information gathering - Evaluation - Investment - Profit-taking Stop-loss

• Information Gathering: Use as many information channels as possible while ensuring quality. I participate in groups with core blockchain players and follow quality KOLs on Twitter and Telegram to stay updated on promising projects. I also keep an eye on on-chain signals to ensure I don’t miss out on potential opportunities.
• Quick Evaluation: Once I spot a potential meme, I need to assess it quickly. One helpful dimension is checking mutual Twitter followers, which requires a well-curated Twitter list of quality KOLs. This helps gauge the project’s potential. After that, I evaluate the narrative, token distribution, and risk-reward ratio before deciding whether or not to invest and how much to invest.
• Profit-taking / Stop-loss Strategy: My strategy is to take back my principal after the price doubles or triples, and then gradually take profits based on my ideal valuation. Since meme prices change so rapidly, I don’t set rigid profit-taking or stop-loss rules. Instead, I adjust based on market sentiment. For example, the sudden deletion of a tweet by Argentina’s president, Milei, couldn’t have been predicted. In such a case, I’d immediately stop losses without hesitation.

Q: If you had to give meme investors three survival tips, what would you say?

Justin:

1. Learn to assess the emotions, virality, sustainability, and whether the meme has a cyclical nature. A meme’s success is not just about the narrative itself but whether it can sustain emotional momentum over time.
2. If the narrative, token distribution, and risk-reward ratio look promising, don’t hesitate to commit to a position. Don’t blindly diversify your investments. Too much diversification can prevent you from catching big gains, and in the end, you might end up “working hard for pocket money.”
3. Losses are part of success. Analyze every loss carefully, summarize the reasons, and apply the lessons to future investments. Real experts don’t avoid losses—they learn from them and keep optimizing their strategies.

Part 4: The Future of Meme Coins

Q: Do you think the hype around meme coins has peaked, or will there be crazier ways to play in the future?

Justin: I believe there will definitely be crazier trends than Pump.fun in the future. Meme culture has existed throughout history. Even before blockchain, people were already enjoying humor, memes, and cultural references—these are some of life’s essential pleasures. Blockchain gives memes an efficient way of creation and dissemination, allowing an IP to skyrocket in popularity much faster than traditional cultural propagation mechanisms could achieve.

I believe that in the future, social media, news, and memes will intertwine even more closely. What if every piece of news or trending topic could be matched with a meme? The meme ecosystem might not just be about trading, but could evolve into a consensus vehicle for news, enabling people to engage in a more intuitive way. This could be very interesting and potentially the next big opportunity.

Q: Do you think the meme market will still be booming in 2025?

Justin: Not only will meme coins continue to be popular in 2025, but they will also persist long-term in the market. Meme coins have become a new form of expression for news, trends, and culture, consolidating consensus through price movements.

Hot trends will keep emerging, cultural movements will continue to evolve, and new personalities will constantly appear. The trends may change each year, but the overall meme market will remain strong. To seize opportunities in the meme space, investors need to be sensitive to global trends, including technology, culture, fashion, and politics.

Each sector will have its own leading meme, and investors can focus on the areas they’re most familiar with, leveraging their strengths and taking advantage of the right opportunities when they arise.

Q: Do you think meme coins have the potential to become “valuable long-term assets”?

Justin: To understand the nature of meme coins, they are essentially pieces of information with viral potential. Whether a meme becomes successful depends on whether the information it carries (culture, jokes, news, personalities, etc.) can generate enough attention and virality in a short period. This is similar to trending topics, except memes are measured by trading volume and market cap, while trending topics are judged by post activity and view counts.

To determine if a meme has long-term value, we need to assess whether the information it carries has the potential for long-term or cyclical virality. For example, Doge is often mentioned by Elon Musk and is linked to discussions about the inefficiency of the U.S. government, giving it long-term value and making it a lasting meme.

On the other hand, PNUT has strong short-term virality but is unlikely to have a similar long-term resurgence, making it a less sustainable meme.

Currently, only a few memes have long-term value. Most are short-term trends that won’t experience another big surge, much like fashion trends that fade out over time. The meme ecosystem will continue to evolve, but only a few will truly become long-term assets.

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