Mai Zong (@Michael_Liu93) is a seasoned investor who has transitioned from traditional finance to Web3. After graduating in 2016, he worked for two years at an investment bank in Canada, focusing on mergers and acquisitions. After being exposed to blockchain from 2017 to 2018, he gradually shifted from a traditional VC perspective to cryptocurrency trading. Currently, he operates a fund focused on the Bitcoin secondary market and is also a well-known KOL in the meme coin space. With deep market insights and high-quality content sharing, he has accumulated over 60,000 Twitter followers in just six months.

Guest Message:

The process every crypto investor must go through:

Seeing the mountain as a mountain

Seeing the mountain as not a mountain

Seeing the mountain as a mountain again

At first, when trading coins, one only focuses on narratives, closely watching smart money and whale wallets, and then becomes particularly attentive to whale operations. Eventually, when you understand all the game rules, you return to the beginning, paying close attention to narratives, funding hotspots, and the consensus among investors.

This process must be realized on your own; it is extremely painful but will ultimately lead to clarity. Keep going!

Mai Zong (@Michael_Liu93) is a seasoned investor who has transitioned from traditional finance to Web3. After graduating in 2016, he worked for two years at an investment bank in Canada, focusing on mergers and acquisitions. After being exposed to blockchain from 2017 to 2018, he gradually shifted from a traditional VC perspective to cryptocurrency trading. Currently, he operates a fund focused on the Bitcoin secondary market and is also a well-known KOL in the meme coin space. With deep market insights and high-quality content sharing, he has accumulated over 60,000 Twitter followers in just six months.

OKX has specially invited him as the first guest of the 2025 "Friends of OKX" series to share his deep thoughts on the meme coin space and advice for newcomers. Through an analysis from both traditional finance and cryptocurrency perspectives, he presents a more three-dimensional market picture.

The "Friends of OKX" series is a specially planned column by OKX, hosted by OKX official community ambassador Mercy (@Mercyokx), aimed at uncovering the career stories, industry insights, and lessons learned from KOLs of different backgrounds for new users to learn from and reference._

The Journey from Traditional Finance to Web3

Mercyokx (@Mercyokx): Can you share your experience entering Web3 with everyone?

Honest Mai Zong (@Michael_Liu93): I entered the financial industry after graduating in 2016, first working for two years at an investment bank in Canada, and later in mergers and acquisitions. My first encounter with blockchain was somewhat accidental. While researching the enterprise service sector, I participated in a conference call with the Credit Suisse research team, where they discussed blockchain technology. I had actually heard of Bitcoin during college, but I was quite skeptical about cryptocurrencies at that time. It wasn't until I encountered Ethereum and the application of blockchain in enterprise services from 2017 to 2018 that I began to take an interest in this field and started investing in some early public chain projects. However, I was still viewing blockchain from a traditional VC perspective until 2020-2021, when I officially transitioned to cryptocurrency, and now I mainly operate a Bitcoin secondary market fund.

Mercy_okx: What is the logic behind your transition from being a VC to focusing on meme coin trading?

Honest Mai Zong: I am someone who enjoys chasing new opportunities; I go where there is wealth creation. Currently, market opportunities are clearly in the secondary market, either buying Bitcoin to earn beta returns or participating on-chain. However, when I first entered on-chain trading, I also went through a period of adjustment. I found that many friends who messaged me reflected that on-chain trading was hard to get into, and they lost money right away. In fact, I also lost money for the first six months, getting "cut" by others every day. This is because even if there is stable profitability in the secondary market, entering on-chain requires being re-educated by the market. So I advise everyone to calmly accept this process, as it is a necessary tuition fee.

My previous VC experience has been very helpful for me now. Essentially, they are both financial markets, and the human nature involved in market making and retail selling shares many logical connections.

Deep Insights into the Meme Coin Market

Mercy_okx: How did you start building your personal brand? What do you think is the key factor that helped you grow from a few thousand to over 60,000 followers in such a short time?

Honest Mai Zong: I think I was quite lucky and hit several hot spots well. First of all, I realized early on that in the meme space, personal branding and voice are very important. Because memes are essentially a game of dissemination, if you are a super disseminator or information center, you can get closer to other information centers. In all financial markets, information asymmetry is always the most valuable.

When I first started my account, I aimed to develop in the meme direction. Initially, I mainly shared my experiences in the secondary market, such as how secondary market makers operate, including some retail investors chasing projects like TON's Dog and hamster. I analyzed the market making and harvesting techniques behind these projects. This content resonated with many, and my account grew from a few hundred followers to several thousand.

Later, I began sharing experiences related to memes. Then, when Solana rapidly exploded, I also seized that opportunity. Although I caught it relatively late—like Hui Jie and others had already been playing on Solana—I still managed to find some good opportunities, such as the early $ai16z and $ban, and now the AI concept, which I believe I also caught correctly. I am personally good at identifying where the hot money is because my trading style is to follow the hot money.

Mercy_okx: How do you view the current development trend of the meme coin market? What changes has the rise of AI concepts brought?

Honest Mai Zong: The current wave of on-chain dividends is unstoppable; it is essentially absorbing liquidity from the secondary market. Why is liquidity on-chain being siphoned off by DEX? Behind this is actually a shift in business models.

I use a metaphor to explain: The original model was like this— I have an idea for making cars, first seeking VC funding, then listing on exchanges to sell cars to secondary market users. The retail investors in the secondary market are essentially consumers who exchange USDT for project tokens. When market liquidity is good, if the project produces a "Porsche," the secondary market consumers might see appreciation. But when market liquidity is poor, and there are many car makers, if the initial pricing is very high, those who buy in the secondary market will become trapped consumers rather than investors.

Now the model has changed to— I have an idea, first raising funds from the market, then gradually developing the product. Because retail investors have early participation opportunities, for example, they can invest when the project is still in the blueprint stage, and once the product is developed, they receive returns. This is essentially seizing the cake that VCs used to eat. Just like before, project parties had to go through rounds of financing: angel round, Series A, Series B; now it has become direct Fair Launch, where the quality of the product and market acceptance are directly reflected in the price.

The rise of AI concepts has brought significant changes, attracting a large influx of institutional funds. The valuations of ai16z and Swarms would not have reached this scale without institutional funding. Moreover, AI projects have changed the on-chain business model; they genuinely have products to showcase. Different types of investors enter at each stage—early on, perhaps a small investor thinks a $500,000 valuation is worth investing in, and later, as the team appears and the product takes shape, more institutional investors are attracted. This provides a clear buying logic at each stage, which is a model that institutional investors really like.

Mercy_okx: Compared to traditional primary and secondary markets, what are the unique aspects of the meme coin market?

Honest Mai Zong: The biggest characteristic is that "buying in often leads to zero." The gameplay of memes can be very diverse. In the secondary market, it is essentially a solo game of wits against the market makers. But meme coins are more like a MMORPG, where everyone shows their skills.

For example, as a small investor, you might be staring at the market every day to catch internal opportunities. If you are good at analyzing chips, you might catch early strong market makers. You can also be a builder; for instance, I recently advised a friend in the group who is not good at AI to talk to Hackathon teams to see who is preparing to issue tokens, establishing relationships in advance, and after they issue tokens and collect chips, they might give you some early opportunities.

The key is to discover a profitable angle that suits you. Just like in the secondary market, some play spot, some play contracts, and within spot, there are those who trade in segments and those who hold. Everyone needs to find the method that works best for them.

Mercy_okx: When evaluating the potential of a meme coin project, what do you think are the most important factors to consider?

Honest Mai Zong: I believe the arrival of the AI trend has significantly changed the evaluation logic of meme coins. In the previous meme era, project parties and market makers were hidden; if you didn't know the developers or primary market makers, it was hard to judge whether a project was a cash grab, a strong market maker, or a scam. Back then, you could only analyze some clues from on-chain addresses, such as looking at how high a project party's previous projects could go.

With the AI wave, evaluation has become closer to VC methodologies. Most of the teams are well-known, and you can conduct real due diligence—directly contacting community members and researching team backgrounds, all of which are written in their profiles.

When evaluating projects, I mainly look at three aspects:

1. Narrative potential: Does the product align with current market hotspots?
2. Team strength: Not only should you look at their expertise in AI, but also their operational capabilities in Web3, including market control, marketing, and community management.
3. Market space: For example, if a certain AI framework has reached a $2 billion valuation, and a new team with a strong technical background emerges in a similar direction, that presents a market replication opportunity.

This is actually very similar to the logic of traditional VC investing in early projects. Just like Zhenge Fund is known for "investing in people," in the early stages of a project, there may not be much to look at besides the founder. But regardless of the stage of participation, the core is always about the people, because how big a project can grow depends not only on the product itself but also on whether the team can create market sentiment, operate the project, and deliver continuously. Especially in the AI space, we need to find teams that understand both the product and the Web3 gameplay; such projects are most likely to succeed.

Mercy_okx: There are now many sub-sectors related to AI tokens, including computing power, infrastructure, pure memes, agent technology frameworks, launchpad platforms, etc. When evaluating different types of projects, how do you weigh product logic, narrative, and market sentiment? Do different categories have different evaluation standards?

Honest Mai Zong: I will use an example of a framework-type project to explain. This round of so-called framework projects can be understood as counterparts to public chains, and there will be various applications on top, such as TradeFi or games. Why is the market so eager for $Virtual and $ai16z? Because they are building underlying frameworks, and the market gives them valuations similar to public chains.

In the AI application space, we believe that besides frameworks, the most valuable direction is TradeFi + AI, for two reasons:

1. Liquidity entry point: In the cryptocurrency market, the most important thing is to find where the liquidity is. TradeFi is the easiest application sector to tap into liquidity; if you can earn a commission on trades, that product becomes very valuable.

2. User Interaction Frequency: In the cryptocurrency field, the most common activity for users is trading. Therefore, the AI applications with the highest interaction frequency are likely also in the TradeFi + AI direction.

Practice has proven this, as seen with projects like Stoic and Berg, whose market capitalization rapidly increased from $2-3 million to tens of millions within two weeks. This is because the market tends to replicate successful logic.

In contrast, projects that are purely conceptual, storytelling, or purely meme-based generally do not have high market recognition, except for a few cases. The AI sector has already entered its 4.0 stage, where simply launching a concept is no longer sufficient to raise funds; the market is more focused on product implementation and viable business models.

As for infrastructure projects like $swarms achieving high valuations, it is because they are similar to public chains and can capture all trading liquidity within the ecosystem. This is also why the price of $Virtual should be higher than that of $ai16z, as it not only provides a technical framework but also taps into actual liquidity. In the future, $ai16z is likely to develop towards liquidity as well, because in Web3, a true moat is not just technology but also the possession of liquidity.

This differs from the AI competition in Web2. Web2 AI resembles an arms race, competing in financial strength and hardware reserves, while in Web3, liquidity has become an extremely critical factor.

Mercy_okx: What are the characteristics of the meme coin ecosystem on different public chains?

Honest Mai Zong: There are unique characteristics for both retail investors and project parties. First, Solana has a particularly fast pace; retail investors might wake up to find their investments have gone to zero, and project parties might also find their tokens gone overnight. Maintaining a market cap of $5-10 million on Solana is very difficult relying solely on natural traffic, as it offers very little margin for error for project parties.

On BSC, there are many rug pulls and startups, but if you encounter good developers and teams, there is considerable potential. However, due to the lack of natural traffic, you basically have to rely on your own efforts to drive the market, so projects that succeed on BSC generally have strong financial backers.

Base is characterized by close ties between the official team and project parties, with significant support. For example, Jess (the head of the Base ecosystem) often helps project parties with promotion. Additionally, there are many technical teams on Base working on some good products. One advantage for retail investors on Base is that the number of projects is relatively small, which reduces the pressure of choice, and they can focus on projects backed by official endorsements, making it relatively safer.

Newcomer Entry Guide

Mercy_okx: What do you recommend for newcomers entering the market in terms of reasonable fund allocation and building a sustainable investment system?

Honest Mai Zong: The primary recommendation is not to buy VC coins in the secondary market. If you don't understand trading, I suggest allocating Bitcoin as a hoarder, and also appropriately allocating mainstream coins like Solana and Ethereum. If you want to trade memes, I recommend buying already validated blue-chip meme coins in the secondary market, such as Doge and Pepe.

Regarding fund allocation, I suggest that newcomers wanting to participate in on-chain trading only use 10% of their total funds. For example, if you have $100,000, take $10,000 to gamble on-chain, investing perhaps $200 in each coin to start experimenting. Absolutely do not go all in. The best approach is to start as an observer; once you can consistently generate profits in this market, gradually increase your capital scale.

Before finding a stable profit method, I recommend not pursuing profits from internal trading. I have seen many friends frantically "bottom-fishing" in internal trading, but they often end up being harvested. I suggest starting to observe projects with a market cap of $5-10 million, investing $0.05-0.1 ETH each time to experiment. Once you find that you are generally making money in memes, then expand your position. This is not a gambling game; if you treat it as gambling, you will definitely suffer significant losses.

Mercy_okx: How can one build information acquisition channels?

Honest Mai Zong: The most important thing is not to follow matrix accounts. Instead, focus on a few major KOLs in the industry who are trustworthy. Pay special attention to the initial recommendations (calls) from KOLs rather than subsequent recommendations, as the market changes too quickly, and the odds of later calls may be different.

Additionally, find a group of trusted, complementary partners to communicate with. In this market, teamwork often leads to greater success than going solo. Everyone may have their own strengths, and mutual support can help you go further.

Suggestions and Outlook for OKX

Mercy_okx: What is your overall impression of OKX?

Honest Mai Zong: The OKX team is very forward-thinking and interacts closely with the community. This includes the product team and colleagues involved in KOL operations, who are very in touch with the market. They have also done well in terms of on-chain tools and wallets, providing free services from the start, which shows good strategic vision. They have responded quickly to the transformation of this wave of on-chain market conditions, and among all exchanges, they have a far-sighted perspective. I cannot yet assess the response speed to issues, as I have not encountered relevant situations. However, overall, OKX has a very serious attitude towards serving users.

This article is for reference only. It represents the author's views and does not reflect the position of OKX. This article does not intend to provide (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involves high risks and may fluctuate significantly. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. Please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals regarding your specific circumstances. You are responsible for understanding and complying with applicable local laws and regulations.

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