From Byte Programmer to Securing Tens of Millions of Dollars in Cryptography: A “Calm” Wealth Code and Trading Philosophy

Calm down: Hello everyone, I'm calm. Everyone on the chain should know me more or less. When I was playing with Ethereum NFTs, I gave myself an ENS address name, “Calm down and then calm down”. I've all kind of forgotten why I suddenly wanted to take this name at the time; I probably rushed too many pixiu and evacuated the pool for a while, so I wanted to calm myself down. A lot of people follow me on Twitter from my address.

Along the way, many coins on the chain have received quite good returns, and it also became one of the top players on the chain in Solana's MEME market last year.

Mercy: You mentioned that you worked at ByteDance before, and I'd like to ask what led you to get into the world from Byte?

Calm down: I came into contact with Crypto during the peak of the 2021 bull market, and I was still in Byte. Accidentally, I heard some stories about getting rich with Crypto in a chat with other colleagues. I had just bought a house at the time, and the financial pressure was quite high, so I was eager to participate and let my colleagues pull me into several coin trading groups.

At that time, I never expected that I would quit my job trading coins in the future, or even gain financial freedom. I just thought it was a trading opportunity and wanted to explore if I could make money. Therefore, outside of my daily work, I started to get involved in the coin industry. Although I don't have a full time job, I've basically participated in hot spots in the chain in the past two or three years, including NFTs, Ethereum's MEME, and Solana's MEME, which started last year.

In the process, I also went from being a novice to an increasingly experienced on-chain player, but it is true that I missed many opportunities because I wasn't able to trade coins full time. To be honest, there have been quite a few opportunities for ordinary users to make money on the chain in the past few years.

Mercy: So what made you finally decide to quit Byte and join the coin industry full time?

Calm down: I quit my job at Byte to trade coins full time, mainly because the market in the second half of last year was so good that I found it difficult to balance the two. During that time, I often had to wake up at 4-5 a.m. to check the market, then kept watching until I went to work at the company after 9 a.m., and after coming back in the evening, I sat in front of my computer for 1 to 2 hours trading coins, and then went to bed at 10 o'clock. The whole person felt very tired.

My friends also often ask me when to quit my job, because during that time, I often earned more money from a Dogecoin than a year's salary. However, I myself felt that even though I made some money, I didn't feel very comfortable quitting my job. After all, my salary on Web2 was pretty good at the time.

The turning point that made me decide to quit Byte and join the coin industry full time was when I met PNUT in November of last year. I've always liked this story myself. I also studied its market capitalization ranking in spot MEME and found out whether it was second to last or third, that is, the narratives and popularity that are lower than its market capitalization are far inferior to it.

I judged at the time that the safety cushion was quite high if I bought it, and the possibility of a big loss was very small, so I bought it in a heavy position. I sold almost 20 BTC at the time, and then bought them all.

Everyone knows what happened next. The next day, Musk tweeted that PNUT, the MEME coin, saved the US. This kind of Twitter directly referring to MEME coins was actually very unseen. I remember that the market sentiment was also very good at the time. It took off in a straight line, from over 300 M to about 1.5B, and then pulled to 2.5B after one night, which is equivalent to about 7 times as much as being able to eat. I later cleared my position when it dropped to 1.8B, but I got my first big profit, then after I had this capital, I quit my job and entered the coin industry full time.

Mercy: What impact do you think your work experience at Byte had on your subsequent full-time on-chain trading?

Calm down: I was a programmer when I worked at Byte, and I used to be a computer professional. I think the biggest influence is that I am better at English, understand technology faster, understand and understand narratives relatively quickly, and am biased about trading habits, and not easily influenced by others.

Mercy: What's the difference between working full time on a chain and working in a big factory?

Calm down: It's true that there's no going back. I love that California Hotel has a lyric: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” You're used to the intense but free life of Crypto, and it's hard to go back to that kind of step-by-step lifestyle.

In particular, the second half of last year continued until Trump issued coins. The adrenaline rush on the chain every day made many things tasteless. The big difference between full-time on-chain trading and working in a large factory is that you are fully responsible for yourself, and your income and future are all in your control, not in the hands of your boss.

So when the market is good, it will definitely be a little more intense, but the crypto market is good or bad, and the difficulty and quantity of making money is very different, so I think it's completely voluntary. After waking up, I'm very excited to sit in front of my computer to see if there are any opportunities. I probably just sit for a day. I don't have much time to sleep, but I don't feel very tired.

It will also be more flexible. For example, if you have earned money in a while, it's totally OK if you want to take a break; no one will check it out. What kind of life you choose depends on your personality. I prefer the Crypto lifestyle.

Calm down: In fact, at some point after Crypto, I felt very satisfied with this round of earnings, and it was time to stop trading big positions. After all, you can't make enough money, but you can lose it, so I think the risk can be reduced appropriately. Of course I won't quit; just play on the chain.

Before changing to this profile, I remember my previous introduction: “A29 years old man with millions of dollars and gambling addiction” I used to have a high risk appetite. You can see that in my previous Stud PNUT, but when I had a lot of money, I don't think this should be the case anymore, so I changed it to the current profile.

Mercy: What was the biggest profit or loss in your trading process?

Calm down: The biggest profit was Trump coins, and I should have earned 23M in the end. When I lose money, I usually stop losing money, and I rarely take particularly large positions on the chain, and I don't play with exchange piracy, so losing 50-60,000 U is quite a lot for me.

I have the impression that the biggest loss was the Argentine President's $Libra, which lost more than 200,000 U, but since Trump had just earned some money at the time, it didn't seem like much. If I lose more than 200,000 U now, I'll be heartbroken for a few days. Because it's so difficult to make money now, there's a good saying, “I always think the opportunities are limitless, so I never cherish the good days ahead.”

Mercy: How do you manage your mentality in the face of huge profits/losses?

Calm down: I always think I should earn more points when I make money, and lose less when I lose. I've never cared about the win rate; it mainly depends on positions. I'm still learning about mentality management myself. Currently, I have a few points:

The first point relates to the amount of capital and risk appetite of each person. I would buy a position where I can sleep comfortably. The definition of comfort is — it doesn't matter if I go back to zero.

The second is to buy coins that you are really optimistic about and think are interesting, rather than buying them after others or when you see someone else buying them.

Finally, I have my own trading strategies and plans, such as how much profit to reach when the market capitalization rises. I think one foreign KOL Alien Cat said this very well. He said that a deal can be divided into go0dwin, bad win, good loss, and bad loss.

Good win means you see trends and space earlier than others and have your own views, and the trend of things is indeed in line with your views. In the end, you also got the benefits you wanted. This kind of victory is worth celebrating.

A bad win is when you're just investing blindly or following an order. Someone else bought a coin, but you had good luck. For example, Musk suddenly returned this coin, or the technology you didn't understand was actually a very good technology. This kind of victory can actually be enjoyed, but we should not pursue this kind of victory.

Goodlose is you followed your own trading system and theory, but in the end, it didn't work. Maybe something happened that was out of your control, or maybe the market didn't agree with your views in the end. I've actually had quite a few goodlosses over the past few months, but I don't think there's a problem. For example, on many platforms, there are actually a lot of targets that don't match my aesthetic. I wouldn't feel sorry to miss these. There are also some coins I like that didn't come out in the end, so I think it's all acceptable to not make any money.

The last one is Badlose, that is, your trading is driven by emotions, and not adhering to your own trading system will eventually take its toll. This kind of failure is something we need to avoid.

Calm down: We usually divide a transaction into several steps.

The first step is to discover opportunities. In this step, you need to collect and build some wallet addresses yourself, give yourself some transaction signals, and discover high-quality information sources, such as Twitter users or alpha groups.

Regarding the wallet address, it is important to note that no matter who buys it, it can only be used as a reference for oneself, and whether to buy it depends on one's own judgment. Anyone who blindly follows orders is a negative EV operator.

Regarding Twitter users and alpha groups, you need to identify for yourself what content is valuable. On-chain players are actually relatively easy to verify; you only need to look at the profit status of their actual address. It's called “Talkis cheap, show me the wallet.” What I think is easier for newbies to be fooled is that many people on Twitter do receive advertisements or set up paid groups for traffic, but keep in mind that wallet addresses are always the best means of verification.

After finding an opportunity, the second step is deciding whether to buy, so how do you decide? It is necessary to combine the judgment on the narrative aesthetic of MEME coins mentioned earlier. However, aesthetics are very subjective, but I think it's also very important, especially when mobility is good. Because many coins are launched on the chain every day, you need to have your own standards to quickly determine whether to buy a token.

Determining whether to buy it now will probably only take a minute or two at most to take a look, and I'll make a decision right away. So I think this aesthetic is quite difficult to quantify; many times it relies heavily on a person's empirical intuition. If you want to cultivate aesthetics, it is to watch and play more, interesting coins, interesting things, spend less energy on so-called trash coins and dealer coins, and slowly cultivate your ability to read stories.

Mercy: You mentioned on Twitter that you chose MEME for yourself is actually based on aesthetics. This is an interesting statement. Why use this as one of the criteria for selecting targets?

Calm down: I've tried quantifying some aesthetic standards before, but now I'm sharing the money with everyone, which coins I would like to buy:

The first is technological innovation. Technological innovation doesn't need to be big, it doesn't need to be perfect, but it must be innovative. It can't be a complete imitation; that would be very cheap.

The second is a MEME that has the potential to spread widely. This should focus on endorsements from celebrities and big companies. For example, Ghibli. It's actually a picture style launched by ChatGPT, which went viral on Twitter. This kind of MEME has the potential to spread widely because it has the endorsement of large companies. The endorsement here does not refer to coins issued by large companies, because the vast majority of MEME coins are rubbish. It means that this technology or hot topic is being led by a celebrity or big company, so the probability that it will spread widely is much greater.

The third one is cults (cults). So-called cults are like SPX or Milady, or like a hippopotamus or Bitcoin (ticker Bitcoin Harry Potter coin). Many of the coins on the Murad (car head in English) list belong to the category of cults.

The characteristics of this type of coin: 1. In the end, it will form a strong community; 2. Generally speaking, it is not fast communication and will go through a long period of washing, so you need to be able to hold it and go deep into the community at the same time to understand and agree with their culture.

Another category are projects sold by other companies at low market capitalization. For example, a project was sold by surprise, or a warm-up, but when it was launched, the game was curtailed and a large number of chips were sniped by experts in the Jiuli System. As a result, the market was frantically smashed by snipers during the opening, giving you a chance to enter the market at a low market value.

This type of project can often rise relatively high in a short period of time due to unreasonable pricing at the time of opening. After a day or two of hot fermentation, the price difference will be quickly smoothed out, and eventually it will return to its proper market value. This kind of money is actually more suitable for on-chain players to grab a profit, because players on the chain can catch any sudden hot spots or projects launched by other companies, and they can make a lot of money in a short period of time. We all like this.

Finally, there's a MEME that makes you want to laugh at first sight. This depends on everyone's understanding of MEME. There was a mask dog on Base before, and I thought it was very funny as soon as I watched it. In one video, the dog looked at you with a mask, and I also liked MEME like this.

The above points are what I call my aesthetic standards. Of course, when I see a coin, I don't set these standards. Many times it depends on my feelings, but in the end, it probably falls into these categories.

Mercy: How do you usually set a stop loss?

Calm down: There are several situations. One is to monitor the project party's Twitter to see how the project progresses. If you think that the project party's Twitter statement is not your favorite, or that its progress is not as expected, you feel strange. At this time, even if you lose money, I may sell.

The other is that I think the hot spots have moved; at this point, I will sell even if I lose money. Also, when I see that the mouse bin on the project side is being shipped, it may also be sold at this time. Finally, when I find a coin that might have more room to rise, I'll probably switch one coin's position to another.

Mercy: Recently, many full-time on-chain traders feel that the on-chain market is becoming more and more difficult to play after $Trump, and the rising ceiling for MEME coins is not as high as before. How do you think the current market should be operated?

Calm down: Trump Coin is definitely the peak of on-chain liquidity, because the months before it was issued were already the golden age of the chain.

At that time, AI and HIPPO, like MOODENG, NEIRO, GOAT, and Solana, I felt like it was too common for one coin to reach 50M, and it was very common to even pull up to 50M or 70M within a day. At that time, no one said they wanted to go find Zhuang; when we saw a good story, it naturally boosted up. Many people actually made a lot of money back then.

The poor liquidity on the chain in the last six months has indeed increased the difficulty a lot. On the one hand, Trump has taken away liquidity; on the other hand, there are indeed not as many narratives as last year, so the upper limit of these coins is very low. If the upper limit is low, whales will definitely not want to come in. This is a vicious cycle, so everyone will find it very difficult to play.

Many of the coins that can be activated now are highly controlled, so there is nothing you can do about it. I think the next ideal situation on the chain is to have a brand new Meta, because the funds are currently at level 2, so the funds are actually there. The second-level players actually have money. There is actually a lack of a new on-chain Meta. Similar to GOAT driving AlAgent, this level can attract incremental capital, which in turn has a relatively good wealth effect. Otherwise, every day the chain will be PVP.

But I can't predict what kind of gameplay will come out later, but the current market can't be too structured. Although, for example, there are a lot of coins recently, I think it's very interesting. Maybe its story can reach 80M or 100M, but it won't rise until it reaches 30M. At times like this, you need to adjust your own psychological expectations.

Mercy: You shared on Twitter that you bought a lot of ETH around 2,200, and now it seems like this is a pretty correct investment. Wondering why you bought so much Ethereum back then? How do you balance the difference between long-term investments and short-term MEME transactions?

Calm down: When I bought more than 2000 ETH, I thought it was a bear market price; it was really cheap. ETH has the characteristics of decentralization and censorship resistance. Compared to other coins, it has a strong moat, but there was no current stablecoin boom at the time, and ETHETF did not pass.

It turns out that later these trends were actually not worth mentioning in the face of Wall Street's amount of money, and Wall Street's ability to tell stories was really strong.

In terms of long-term investments, before Trump Coin, my exchange held all BTC except on the chain. Every time I make money on the chain, I buy BTC and sell BTC when I need the money. It's all BTC-oriented, and the purpose of all operations is to have more BTC.

However, after Trump Coin, I used some of my funds for stablecoin financial management, because if I put all of my money in BTC, I would unconsciously want to look at the price, and its fluctuations will affect my mood.

In the past, I think ETH was not driven by US stocks, and there was no strong demand on the chain; it probably wasn't a good target for value storage. So I'm totally BTC-oriented. Now that has changed a bit, ETH has been injected with external funds. I know many people also choose to hold ETH, but for me, I'm not particularly interested in ETH, so I'm currently choosing to hold BTC in addition to USDT.

Calm down: I think two things need to be clear before actually trading full time

The first is whether you have the ability to earn money continuously and steadily. And the money earned through this ability is indeed far greater than going to work. Because you're taking more risks, it doesn't mean much if the money you earn hasn't gone to work a lot, or about the same. If you can't make money before you work full time, then you probably won't be able to make money in the cryptocurrency industry after working full time. At this time, it's better to improve your skills while working, and wait until going to work actually prevents you from making more money before quitting

The second is that some deposit is required. The main thing is to be emboldened if the market suddenly doesn't go well, or if your family needs to spend money in case of an emergency. It's best to have at least one or two years of daily consumption reserves.

Mercy: Are there any mistakes that newbies who want to join the chain full time now must avoid?

Calm down: At this stage, on-chain liquidity is poor. Newbies can start with a small amount of trial and error and slowly build their own positive EV trading system, which can achieve stable profits.

Stability does not mean that the win rate is high, or that every transaction makes money, but rather looks at the extended cycle. For example, although there are losses and gains in a week or month, the overall return in the end is positive. If liquidity is poor now, you can make money, then you can make a big difference when on-chain liquidity returns later.

Mistakes to avoid for newbies. First, you need to know that blockchain has many opportunities; you should avoid excessive FOMO. Newbies don't have much money in the first place. At this time, it's hard to catch up. If they fail, it will affect their mentality.

The second is a mistake that newbies tend to make; they like to follow orders. You must avoid blindly following orders. Many people like to follow KOLs, or follow orders for smart money. It is difficult to improve one's abilities in this way, because simply following orders and others cannot develop the ability to independently explore projects.

Mercy: You actually lose money by following orders. You only feel like you need to think independently after losing enough with others.

Calm: Yes, it's probably followed once or twice, then made money, then got complacent, then became a continuous loss later

Because the driver has his own judgment, he may have lost money continuously during this period of time, but he may be able to make a big profit from the next trade. However, newbies have a small amount of capital; they may not have patience after losing four or five times, or they may lose almost as much money. At this point, they will stop following orders. But the front side of the car you ordered will probably make a lot of money next time, and you missed it

Mercy: Do you think there are any similarities or differences between NFTs and MEME coins when you entered the ring?

Calm down: NFTs and MEME coins are still very different,

The liquidity and wealth effects of NFTs at the time were far worse than MEME coins. In terms of liquidity, NFTs often cannot be sold even if a project wants to be sold, but MEME coins can be smashed out at will. An NFT project can earn two. For the project party, the requirements for NFTs are also a bit higher; the project party must at least draw and operate. The MEME coin project actually doesn't cost anything with two clicks. Thirty Ethereum is quite a lot. Twenty or thirty Ethereum is only 100,000 U at the current price. It seems that quite a few people earn 100,000 U of MEME coins every day, so the wealth effect is very different.

Also, for our level 1 players, the cost of NFTs is fair. For example, at the Mint stage, everyone costs the same. But if it's a MEME coin, for example, if you follow someone, then your cost is probably double that because he can pay directly. So in terms of difficulty, MEME coins will be much larger.

For the project party, the requirements for NFTs are also a bit higher; the project party at least needs to draw and operate. The MEME coin project actually doesn't cost anything with two clicks.

Calm down: First of all, I still want to stay in Crypto. Now crypto is driven by capital from US stocks, which is a good thing for the overall capital volume and price of the market. It is equivalent to drawing the money of retail traders in US stocks into the coin industry. Currently, various US policies have cleared up many compliance issues for crypto, and many funds, including pensions, can participate, so I am very optimistic about the future of cryptocurrencies.

Moreover, there are currently only a few people in the world who own Bitcoin, and the depreciation of fiat currency is inevitable. I believe more and more people will embrace Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the future.

I've always believed Saylor's statement that if Bitcoin doesn't go back to zero, then it will reach $1 million each. Now it seems that the fear of going back to zero is almost gone, because it has government support and sufficient consensus.

As for my long-term plans, I hope — I can write some more exquisite products. There are a lot of gadgets now, all very beautiful, and I hope I can have some ideas to make some valuable tools in the future.

Mercy: Which OKX feature or product do you use the most?

Calm down: I've always felt that the OKX product experience was very good, especially since I use my phone a lot, and the app experience was very good. What I use a lot on exchanges is current financial management, and I also win with dual currencies.

Web3 is OKXWallet. Needless to say, most of the friends I know use OKX wallets. Many functions, such as multi-wallet management and aggregated transactions, are basically used every day. I want OKX to make the wallet as good as possible. Now it's great, keep doing it as much as possible.

In this in-depth conversation, I saw the complete process of successfully transforming from a traditional internet giant programmer to a full-time crypto trader.” “Calm down” tells us from his own experience that the real wealth code in Crypto is not luck, but rational thinking, systematic approach, and continuous learning.

From entering the ring at the peak of the bull market in 2021, to experiencing a complete bear market, to finding your own trading rhythm in the MEME coin wave, the “calm” trading philosophy — from “good win, bad win, goodloss, bad loss” classification thinking, to “aesthetic-based” coin selection criteria, to strict risk management principles — provided us with a relatively complete framework of trading thinking.

More importantly, he maintains a clear understanding of the market. Whether it is an analysis of the current lack of liquidity or a judgment on the long-term development trend of cryptocurrencies, it reflects the rationality and forward-looking nature that a mature trader should have.

As his ID suggests, in this highly emotional market, “calm down and then calm down” is probably the best trading philosophy. For newcomers who want to enter this field, small amounts of trial and error, building systems, and learning from failure may be more important than pursuing overnight wealth.

After all, in the never-ending market of cryptocurrencies, only those who can keep calm can truly master their own wealth code. Thank you for sharing this calmly, meticulously and sincerely! Here are OKX friends. I'm Mercy, the host, and welcome your attention.