[Comparative Interview] Former Meta Employees All in Crypto: An Investment Survival Guide Amid Meme Chaos

From a major internet companyMetaResigned, Justin (X: @justinweb33) has invested full time in the crypto field as aentrepreneurs andCrypto Degen (fanatic), he not only successfully bet on PEPE, Degen,TRUMPPopular targets have accumulated rich records, and have also learned valuable lessons from market fluctuations time and time again.

In this exclusive interview with Bitrate, Justin shared his story from Meta to Crypto, and discussed in depth the investment strategy, market status, and future trends of Meme coins. This article contains plenty of trivia that will inspire you whether you are new to Meme coins or a veteran player. Recommended reading!

Part 1: Big factory employees jump into the crypto “rabbit hole”

You quit Meta to focus on memes and crypto, how did your family or friends react? What do they think of meme coins?

Justin: I'm more of a crypto degen than a “person who quit a big company to start a business.” Before I joined Meta, I decided to be deeply involved in Crypto for a long time, but I felt that I needed more technical and team collaboration experience, so I went to Meta. At the time, Meta also had a Crypto team. Many of the bosses were veterans of the Libra project, the Move language development team was also among them, and Instagram even had an NFT business. As a result, it wasn't long before I got in. The bear market hit, Meta cut out all blockchain-related businesses and focused on the metaverse and AI.

At the time, while earning my salary at Meta, I exchanged most of my income and stocks for cryptocurrencies. In my spare time, I was also tinkering with various DeFi, NFTs, SocialFi, and Meme projects in Crypto. In 2023, as a Chinese, we hosted the first 1,000-person Blockchain+AI conference in New York, and invited a number of star projects. These experiences helped me a lot in my future business.

The family actually “seems to understand” Crypto, but they fully support it. My dad even searches the news himself. Every time he sees Doge and Trump coins out of the market, he comes and asks me, “Buy or not?” It's pretty cute.

Do they support you All in Crypto?

Justin:I was a bit hesitant at first. After all, it was quite risky to give up Meta's good treatment and go to an “uncertain” industry. But life is about choices; you can't just stabilize your salary and seize alpha opportunities. I chatted with them about Crypto's long-term certainty, and they finally respected my decision, and my dad even asked me to save some bitcoins for him.

Are you making or losing money on meme coin investments, what do people around you think?

Justin:It's generally profitable, but there are more meme coins that lose money than those that make money. The core strategy is: if I'm optimistic about a meme, I'll bet heavily, such as Pepe in 2023, Degen in 2024, and Trump in 2025. In this way, even if most memes go back to zero, the few bets are enough to turn the game around.

I've seen many friends “cast a wide net”. They bought a few of every hot meme, and they might actually bet 100 times the coin, but since the positions were too scattered and the final profit was average, they just lay a bunch of zeros in their wallets.

Did you step on a pit before entering the meme track?

Justin: Meme investing is a “comprehensive discipline”. You need to understand hot topics, emotions, culture, investments, and you also need to know yourself, all intertwined. What I've learned the most in the past two years—there are far more ways the market can make you lose money than you can imagine.

Part 2: Discussion on the current state of meme coins

What do you and friends around you think of the CZ Shaking Dog with Fire BNB Chain Meme?

Justin:CZ saw a trend in on-chain transaction volume and hoped to use the momentum to boost the activity of the BNB chain. As a result, the community's response was not good. Because he didn't “officially announce” which Broccoli was the orthodox version, hundreds instantly appeared in the market, cutting off quite a few retail investors, and at the same time dispersed liquidity.

The marketing aspect of this operation was very successful, and it really boosted the popularity of the BNB ecosystem. However, the problem is that retail investors' emotions are determined by whether they make money or not. Many people have lost money, so naturally they are full of cursing. This model creates topics in the short term, but may damage user trust in the long run.

Does the BNB ecosystem meme still have a chance of exploding?

Justin:There are opportunities, of course, but there is still a long way to go. The infrastructure of the BNB ecosystem cannot keep up with Meme transaction requirements, such as transaction speed, infrastructure, stability, etc.Solana 和 BASEIt also went through many refinements to have today's silky smooth experience, and BNB is obviously not ready this time. Pancake and Binance Wallet are seriously stuttering, high slippage, poor stability, etc., making it difficult for many users to trade.

Furthermore, BNB needs to find its own flashpoint rather than simply replicate the successful experiences of other chains. Solana hasPump.funStandardize meme distribution, aggregate liquidity, and drive the trading tool ecosystem. BNB needs a similar breakthrough. I think AI may be a direction, especially AI applications. Chinese people are very good at this field. If they can incubate “Pump.fun” in the AI era, it may revitalize the entire ecosystem.

Argentine President Millay brought a single meme, then Rug Pull left. What do you think?

Justin:Millay probably saw the popularity of Trump and other celebrity coins memes, and felt that Crypto could be used to boost the Argentine economy and, incidentally, finance private companies. Maybe the KIP team also provided him with some share of the benefits. However, he probably didn't expect to be cut in the future, leading to a collapse in currency prices and an explosion of public opinion on social media, so he immediately removed responsibility for deleting the post.

What do crypto traders or VCs around you say about this?

Justin:Many of the top players and founders on the chain have lost a fortune, adding up to at least 10 million US dollars. Everyone was very angry at Millet's deleted tweets because the endorsements of national leaders made them dare to take big positions. However, Crypto is a casino, and every piece of information affects decisions. The key is whether you can anticipate and respond to new information. For example, when Miley deletes tweets, do you choose to cut meat or increase positions?

Most importantly, traders should not develop a “loss aversion” mentality due to losses and try to make up for losses. Instead, they should calmly analyze whether to increase positions or stop losses, just like they saw Miley tweet. The essence of trading is to pay for your own decisions.

Will “National Checklists” Become the New Normal for Meme Coins?

Justin:If within a short period of time, all 3 to 4 national meme coins are in the “online surge - collapse to zero” model, this game won't continue to be played. People who have lost money won't get on the bus again, and later countries won't dare to play it.

If it is to be established for a long time, it is necessary to find an economic model and gameplay that can continue to operate; otherwise, like an NFT, it will collapse after being popular for a short time.

Part 3: How can regular users play memes?

Many meme coin investors say they “know it's a gamble, but they just can't help but rush”. What do you think of this mentality?

Justin:Meme coins give people a sense of “grassroots counterattack”. This is similar to the appeal mechanism of casinos, but Meme's rise and fall far exceeds that of casinos, and even makes casinos seem a bit boring. Although most people lose money in the end, stories of getting rich a hundred times or a thousand times make people believe that “the next person to turn around may be me.” Even if you lose, you'll keep rushing because the FOMO mentality is at work.

But if you rush back and fight strategically, you can survive longer. Real traders carefully select targets that have a winning percentage rather than just stud at a meme. At the same time, set a clear take-profit and stop-loss strategy to avoid being driven by market sentiment.

If I'm an ordinary investor, how can I tell which meme coins have potential and which ones are just cutting leeks?

Justin:Due to time, I can rarely sit in front of my computer, keep watching newly launched memes, and participate in the internal trading phase. Therefore, I prefer to choose medium- to long-term memes with a life cycle of more than a few hours. This requires judging the meme's narrative, chip structure, profit and loss ratio, and whether it has explosive power for social communication.

• Narrative (Narrative)
  In terms of narrative judgment, I think there are two key points: the number of people covered and the depth of resonance. First, it depends on whether the story can reach enough people; second, whether it can impress these people and resonate with them. If the story is too niche, it's not necessarily bad, but the ceiling is limited, making it difficult to spread widely. However, some well-known IPs may not be suitable as memes, as everyone's resonance and sense of approval may not be high. These two points are inseparable.

• Chip structure (Token Distribution)
  You need to determine if this project has any traces of success. Generally speaking, the dealer's wallet will definitely appear in the top 100, so you can focus on digging deeper into the top 100 addresses. Pay special attention to the fact that in a two-stage sideways market, the bookmaker is most likely to end up attracting money.

  1) Market-making wallets mainly depend on the number of transactions. Their function is to cash out and distribute at a high level, absorb the bottom, and gradually raise the bottom, while harvesting chips used by retail investors to cut meat, and transfer chips to diamond players and large players.

  2) Trading volume is also a good way to judge a trade. I usually use trading volume/market value to determine that if this value remains >1 for a long time, it means that the bookmaker on this plate is still strong.

  3) Address library management: Every time I find a store, I save the address and may use it again in the future, similar to tracking smart money.

• Risk-Reward Ratio
  You need to set a target price for this token based on a narrative judgment. For example, PUT might be a 1B level narrative, while Trump is a 100B level narrative. Based on the current market capitalization and your target price, it can help you decide whether it's worth investing and how many positions you should invest in. For example, Dogshit2, a story I'm optimistic about recently. I think it can reach a market capitalization of at least 100M, but currently it's only 2M. This shows me 50x room to rise, so I will choose to invest in a certain position and follow my judgment.

• Social communication explosiveness (Virality)
  You need to quickly determine who is following this token on Twitter, deduce their communication relationships, and analyze which potential circles or KOLs may follow it in the future. This requires a certain accumulation of KOL value in the meme core community. You can use tools such as Katio or The1 to analyze the influence of KOLs calling for orders and help determine their potential to spread.

Many meme experts have summarized a number of excellent investment suggestions, and I recommend everyone to check them outGMGNThe “0 to $10 Million Meme Operation Guide”, written with on-chain experts, contains many in-depth analyses on selecting meme targets, as well as corresponding take-profit and stop-loss strategies. This guide is a very useful reference.GMGN: 0 to $10 Million MeMe Operation Guide.pdf

What would you think of a meme project yourself? Is there a “take profit” or “stop loss” rule?

Justin:Watch a meme split into several stages: Get Information → Evaluate → Invest → Take Profit/Stop Loss.

• Get information
  There should be as many information channels as possible while ensuring the quality of the information. I will discuss in some core chain player groups, and I will also follow the Twitter and TG groups of high-quality KOLs to ensure that I know as soon as high-quality projects appear. Also, I keep an eye on the signals on the chain to try not to miss potential targets.

• Quick Assessment
  Once you've discovered a meme with potential, you need to make a quick decision. Twitter mutual friends are a very helpful judgement. This requires your Twitter watchlist to be well-trained, pay more attention to high-quality KOLs, and continuously accumulate high-quality sources of information. This is a magic weapon for judging the quality of a project. Next, evaluate the narrative, chip structure, and profit and loss ratio according to the method described previously, and then decide whether to invest and the size of the investment position.

• Take profit and stop loss strategy
  My strategy is to double or triple the cost upfront, with the remaining portion phased out the profit according to the ideal valuation. Memes change so fast that I don't set rigid take-profit and stop-loss standards, but adjust in real time based on market sentiment. For example, it is impossible to predict the sudden deletion of tweets by Argentine President Millet in advance. When such an emergency occurs, losses must be stopped immediately, and don't hesitate.

If you were to give meme investors 3 survival tips, what would you say?

Justin: 1.Learn to judge the emotions, communication power, persistence of topics, and whether they are cyclical. Whether a meme can catch fire depends not only on the story itself, but also on whether its emotions can continue to ferment.

2. If you are optimistic about memes in terms of narrative, chip structure, and profit and loss ratio, you must dare to take positions and not blindly diversify your investments. An investment method that is too diversified may prevent you from making big profits, and eventually it becomes “after working hard for half a day, all you earn is pocket money.”

3. Losses are part of success. Carefully analyze the reason for each loss of money, make an in-depth summary, and apply it to the next investment.Real experts don't lose money; they can learn from every loss and continuously optimize their strategies.

Part 4: How Memes Will Go in the Future

Do you think the meme coin hype has reached its peak, or will there be more crazy ways to play in the future?

Justin:I think there will definitely be crazier ways to play than Pump.fun in the future. Meme culture has continued throughout history. Before the advent of blockchain, people were already good at playtime and culture, which is one of the essential pleasures of life. Blockchain, on the other hand, has given memes a more efficient way to create and distribute, making it possible for an IP to quickly explode. This is something that traditional culture transmission efficiency cannot achieve.

I think social networking, news, and memes will be more closely integrated in the future. If every news and hot topic could correspond to a meme, what kind of scene would it be? Perhaps the future meme ecosystem will not just be a transaction, but a consensus carrier for some kind of hot news, allowing people to participate in it in a more intuitive way. It's going to be a lot of fun, and it could be the next big opportunity.

If you were to predict the meme market in 2025, do you think it will continue to be popular?

Justin:Memes will not only continue to be popular in 2025, but will also permeate the entire market for a long time. Memes have become a new generation of news, hot spots, and cultural expressions, forging consensus through currency prices.

Hot spots will continue to appear, trendy culture will continue to evolve, and popular people will continue to emerge, but every year the trend is different. Therefore, if you want to seize opportunities in the meme field, you must be sensitive to world hot topics, including technology, culture, trends, politics, etc.

Every field will create its own leading meme. Investors can choose the direction they are good at, use their strengths, and dare to seize opportunities when the right meme appears.

Do you think it's possible for the meme ecosystem to become a “valuable long-term asset”?

Justin:To understand the nature of a meme, it's actually a type of information with transmission properties. Whether a meme can be popular depends on whether the information it carries (culture, news, popular people, etc.) can gather enough attention and dissemination effects in a short period of time. This is similar to the hot search mechanism. The difference is that memes are measured by transaction volume and market capitalization, while hot searches are judged by post popularity and views.

So, judging whether a meme has long-term value depends on whether the information it contains has the ability to spread over a long period of time or periodically. As an example:

• Doge is brought up by Musk from time to time, and at the same time, it is linked to the efficiency of the US government and has long-term discussion value, so Dog has become a long-term meme.

• A meme such as PNUT is extremely explosive in real time, but it's hard to predict whether it will launch an appropriate scene again in the future, so its long-term properties are weak.

Looking at it now, only a few memes have long-term value, and most memes are still short-term hot spots and don't have the ability to break out again. The life cycle of these memes is like a fashion trend. Every year there are new trends, and old memes are gradually being phased out. As a result, the meme ecosystem will continue to evolve, but only a few can actually become long-term assets.

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