During the May 1 holiday, I didnt sleep for five or six days in a row and watched the market for 20 hours a day. As a result, I lost millions of dollars. Losses can truly temper your character. If your U is still in your account, your orders will not be closed until you have truly changed your life.
In the cryptocurrency world, which is full of myths of wealth creation and instant bankruptcy, a post-95s trader with the ID If I dont understand has written his own legend with wisdom and hard work - switching from traditional trade to the cryptocurrency circle, topping the contract list in nine months, and making tens of millions of dollars. It provides a sample with great impact and reference value for countless participants in the market.
Recently, If I Dont Understand (@butaidongjiaoyi) was invited to visit the OKX Singapore office and had a face-to-face exchange with the host Mia Milier (@mia_okx). This article summarizes the core content of the conversation.
From traditional trade to the cryptocurrency world, from digging for millions to returning to the pre-liberation era overnight
Born in 1996, If I Dont Understand was not originally a trader, but a cross-border e-commerce entrepreneur who runs an Amazon store. In 2020, the madness of SHIB and the rise of AXS (Axie Infinity) were like a crack that allowed him to glimpse the magic of the crypto world. His life trajectory has since been closely linked to this 24-hour sleepless market.
Unlike many impulsive speculators, he entered the market with the rigor and diligence of an industrialist. During the day, he handled the daily operations of the store; from 7 pm to 2 am, he devoted himself to the research of on-chain projects. His starting capital was insignificant - he only used 7,000 yuan to buy AXS, but he unexpectedly received several times the return, which opened the door to a new world for him.
After the first taste of success, If I Dont Understand officially embarked on the journey of on-chain gold mining with a principal of about 30,000 to 50,000 yuan. He accurately caught the GameFi wave in 2021, an era of gamification of DeFi financial models. Instead of being satisfied with just a taste, he spent several months playing almost all the GameFi projects on the market and deeply studying their economic models and community gameplay. This extreme investment brought rich returns. In projects such as Radio Caca, BinaryX, Cryptominers, and Farmers World, he used small bets to make big bets, and snowballed tens of thousands of yuan of principal into his first 1 million yuan in life. This bucket of gold is not only an accumulation of wealth, but also his first major victory in verifying his logic through in-depth research.
However, with millions of cash in hand, the mentality of a young man who has just graduated for two or three years has also changed. In May 2022, the market suddenly changed, and Ethereum plummeted from $3,700 to $800, which was even more tragic than the 519 Black Swan incident. In the face of market trends, he continued to increase his positions, gambled on rebounds, and tried to use funds to fight the downward torrent of the entire market. The result is imaginable. In less than two months, his asset positions retreated by more than 95%, and millions of cash almost evaporated, returning to the starting point overnight. This explosive loss became the most profound and painful lesson in his trading career.
“Only by working harder in reality can we truly bring liquidity to Web3.” After the liquidation, he did not give up, but chose to re-invest in Internet entrepreneurship. Relying on the stable income brought by his main business, he gradually accumulated funds and finally made a comeback. Regarding re-entering the blockchain market, he always adheres to a core principle: there must be sufficient net value of principal investment, the entry capital should be at least tens of thousands of RMB, and there should be no debt, otherwise it will change the investment mentality.
You must respect the market, nothing is impossible. From then on, his trading style changed completely - no longer guessing the top and bottom of the market, but focusing on the money that can be earned by relying on strict strategies and clear logic, and accepting everything that may happen in the market. Sobering from the pain, If I dont understand began a real transformation. He seized the BRC-20 inscription in 2023 and the subsequent MEME coin wave, completed the second amazing capital accumulation, and got the first A 8 result. This time, he is no longer the blindly confident gambler, but a hunter with clear strategy and strict logic. His biggest on-chain profit was when he went long on neiro against the trend when others were shorting. At the same time, he also laid out Neiro on the chain, bringing in about $5 million in revenue in the spot part alone. Looking back at the initial motivation for buying, it was not simply out of the expectation of short-term arbitrage, but he was impressed by the community consensus represented by Neiro.
Why did I choose to go long on it? Because when I evaluate every transaction, I will refer to some benchmarks. At that time, MEME projects like BONK and BOME that were listed on the spot market had FDV (fully diluted market value) of about 1 billion US dollars, and some were even higher, reaching 2 billion or 3 billion. So for a project like neiro that has a good IP, I think it is entirely possible to reach a similar benchmark market value. So, after it went online, although many people chose to short, I still firmly went long, and this wave did get it to the position of 1 billion market value. This is the first wave of substantial profits I have achieved in the MEME sector. He shared. After that, he took advantage of the trend to short PNUT and TRUMP and got more results.
Public data shows that in the past 9 months, his contract trading profit exceeded 10 million US dollars. In June this year, the profit of a single ETH transaction reached 7.5 million US dollars.
Ten million dollar trading system: only make money from consensus, not gamble with technology
In the eyes of If I Dont Understand, trading is not metaphysics, but a system that can be deconstructed and learned. The core of this system is not to pursue the most cutting-edge technology or the most complex indicators, but to return to the essence of business and human nature - consensus. He has proved this seemingly simple but extremely profound trading philosophy with his real trading record of tens of millions of dollars.
He pointed out the underlying logic of buying coins: The reason why a token can rise is not because of how good its technology is, but because someone believes it is worth so much. He believes that the core task of a trader is to become a keen consensus hunter - constantly looking for, judging, and verifying where in the market this strong consensus can be generated, gathered, and detonated. Technology, narrative, and community are just tools and carriers for forming consensus.
How to discover the budding of consensus? The answer to If I dont understand is: follow liquidity. He expanded his vision from Crypto to the entire macroeconomy. Every era has its own opportunities. In the early years, it was investing in factories, and later it was buying houses. By the time I graduated, these opportunities were gone. I saw that money was pouring into crypto, and I knew that the opportunity was here. This logic also applies within Crypto. He closely tracks those paradigm projects that can break through the liquidity bottleneck and achieve a market value of 1 billion US dollars, and pays close attention to the second and third waves they trigger. Because these projects define a new wealth effect, funds and attention will naturally follow.
His rise perfectly demonstrates his track switching mentality. He clearly analyzed the internal logic of the three major waves: The first wave (GameFi): the gamification packaging of DeFi. He believes that the essence of GameFi is to package the boring process of DeFi staking to earn APR into a gold-making game, which is essentially DeFi 2.0. He completed the original capital accumulation by deeply studying its economic model.
The second wave (Inscription/BRC-20): short-term boost economics. He attributed its essence to a Ponzi model that relies on more people knowing and more money coming in to maintain. But he pointed out its fatal flaw: unlike ICO, the fees of inscriptions are given to miners, and miners have no obligation to pull the price. This is destined to be a short-term wealth-making opportunity. Therefore, after he made a ten-fold profit on Avalanche inscriptions, he quickly liquidated and left.
The third wave (MEME): The extension of FOMO emotion induced by Solana. He believes that MEME is similar to the logic of inscriptions, belongs to the transmission of attention economics, is the continuation of the wealth-making effect on the Solana chain, and is further catalyzed by platforms such as Pump.fun. His tens of millions of profits were achieved at this stage. The classic battle was on the neiro project. He referred to BONK and other MEMEs with a market value of 1 billion US dollars as benchmarks, firmly went long when everyone was bearish, and finally successfully captured its huge increase in market value to 1 billion.
If I Dont Understand is not only good at long positions, but its short-selling logic is also clear and deadly. He believes that the best time to short-sell comes from the accurate grasp of market sentiment. The core logic is: when a project has experienced a crazy rise without any substantial callback, and its market value has reached an unreasonable height that is completely inconsistent with its fundamentals, it will inevitably go through a brutal wash-out callback process to clean up the previous profit-taking. He used PNUT and TRUMP as examples to explain his short-selling decision. After these two projects were listed on all mainstream exchanges, they experienced a short-term strong rise, but there was no sign of a wash-out. In his view, this rise without callback itself is the most dangerous signal, providing a very high profit-loss ratio and certainty for low-leverage short-selling.
From Novice to Expert: A 4-step guide to conquering the world with a mobile phone
My experience cannot be replicated, but my insights, models and methodology for seizing opportunities can be shared. If I Dont Understand has refined his experience into a highly operational practical manual. The core of this manual is to emphasize building your own trading system through systematic learning and practice under the premise of controllable risks.
It can only be growing alone in no mans land. He firmly believes that the blockchain industry is destined to be a self-learning process, because information iteration is too fast and no one can teach you hand in hand. He himself gained valuable first-hand experience through hard research from 7 pm to 2 am every night, personal practice, and personal loss of money. He provides two efficient information filtering methods: First, KOL screening method. Instead of blindly paying attention to massive amounts of information, it is better to find KOLs who can discover and promote potential projects as early as possible. Paying attention to them is equivalent to letting them help you complete the first round of information screening, greatly improving efficiency. For example, the hippopotamus in the Thai zoo was found by him through KOL. Second, the community deep dive method. Going deep into the projects Discord, Telegram and other communities is the core of judging the vitality of the project. A truly vibrant community will have real discussions, timely questions and answers, and positive emotions. On the contrary, if the community is full of robots and water armies, it means that its consensus basis is false.
How can we lay out when no one cares, and exit when everyone is talking? This old adage in the investment community has been given a clear and actionable signal definition by him: 1) About accurate entry signals. When you see a project, the team is continuously active on social media, the roadmap is clear, and the product functions are gradually implemented, but the mass market has not yet realized its huge potential, it is the best time to enter the market early. 2) About clear exit signals: When the popularity of the project is generally recognized by the market, the FOMO sentiment has completely erupted, the media and the community are discussing it, and its market value has been benchmarked or even surpassed similar benchmark projects, it means that risks are accumulating and you should consider exiting in batches. 3) Exclusive auxiliary indicators: He will also observe some macro-related indicators as canaries, such as the stock price changes of USDC issuer Circle, which can be used as a reference for judging the overall market sentiment or expectations. In terms of news, there are more two functions, one is to let you judge expectations, and the other is to let you defend.
Only by keeping the principal can you be qualified to turn the tables - this is the highest iron rule he extracted from the pain of losses. He emphasized that you should never let your entire position bear huge risks, and you must always keep 30% to 50% of the principal, which is the revolutionary spark that can make a comeback in the next cycle. He gave a layered strategy for position management: 1) Small funds (within tens of thousands of RMB): You can be more aggressive, such as investing all your positions in the Meme track, but you must spread it out to different tokens. At the same time, the proportion of holdings in a single project should not exceed 1% of its total amount, so as to avoid being identified by the project party or the main funds and targeted wash-out.
2) Large funds: security is always the first priority. He clearly pointed out that when he does contracts related to altcoins, his positions generally do not exceed 100,000 to 200,000 US dollars. Because once this level is exceeded, the liquidity of the market will become a problem, and your position can easily be calculated by the market maker of the other side to close the position, thus being accurately sniped. He recommends that most of the large funds be used for periodic trading, or quantitative strategies in volatile markets.
3) General position building rhythm (quarter position strategy): This is a position building method that combines both offense and defense. Invest 25% of the funds to enter the market first; if the trend does not meet expectations, use another 25% of the funds to cover the position at a more ideal position; the remaining 50% must be kept as a strategic reserve and wait for the market pressure to be completely released or a highly certain opportunity to appear before using it.
In addition, he believes that traders must master the universal language of trading, namely the basic technical indicators such as K-line patterns, MACD, KDJ, RSI, etc. However, he also emphasized that these can only be used as auxiliary tools. On top of this, he developed his own unique mindset and strategy.
He quantified the abstract market sentiment or market feeling into an observable indicator - momentum. He gave an example: when the US stock market opens, Bitcoin rises by 0.1%. If Ethereum rises by 0.5% at the same time, it means that Ethereums momentum is very strong; on the contrary, if Ethereum falls instead of rising, the momentum is weak. By observing the linkage reaction of different assets within a trend cycle, the strength of market sentiment can be more accurately grasped.
In order to obtain a better cost and a higher profit-loss ratio, he strongly recommends using limit orders instead of market orders. For example, for long orders, he will use the black swan order flow. In the extreme panic of the market, he will deploy limit orders at the key technical support level or psychological support level calculated in advance to catch the bloody chips that are sold irrationally. For short orders, he will deploy limit orders at key pressure levels. If the price breaks through strongly and stands firm at that position, he will decisively stop loss and leave the market; but as long as the price fails to break through, the potential return of this transaction will far outweigh the risk of stop loss.
The end of the transaction: slow wealth is king, and the practice goes against human nature
When trading rises from skills to philosophy, the ultimate test is no longer the model or tool, but the traders understanding of human nature, wealth and self. The sharing of If I dont understand ultimately returns to the core of this nine deaths and one life game - an inner practice that goes against human nature.
He believes that successful traders can be two completely different extremes: one is extremely greedy, and the other is extremely prudent. He classifies himself as the latter, but this prudentness is not conservative. His choice is: to remain prudent in daily transactions, but to maintain necessary greed at critical moments with extremely high certainty.
If you dont go all in, you wont get such a result at all. He admitted. But this all in is not a mindless gamble, but a high degree of confidence and full bet on ones own cognition after completing all logical deductions and risk assessments. At present, this kind of heavy position operation is more inclined to spot, and contracts are only used in two situations: short-term capture of liquidity gaps, or long-term layout using low leverage of less than 3 times in a large cycle.
The huge wealth does not seem to have changed his life trajectory. He shared that his life has not changed much, and he always reminds himself not to be complacent or make unreasonable consumption because of his achievements. He still cares about the quality of money spent, will pay for the cost-effectiveness, and will still pack up the food that he cant finish. This restraint on material desires and a normal attitude towards life may be the important mental foundation for him to survive the bull and bear markets and keep his profits.
Faced with numerous followers, he chose to reject the seemingly most direct way of cashing out by leading orders. He believes that it is better to teach a man how to fish than to give him a fish. The leading order model is more like a fund financial management, which cannot replicate the real trading ability, nor can it adapt to everyones risk preference and personality. He is more willing to share his analysis methods, thinking patterns and failure experiences, hoping to help more people build their own trading system and seize their own opportunities.
My personal experience is definitely not replicable, he clearly realized, but I can share my experience, model, and how to seize opportunities, which I think can help some people seize their own opportunities in the future.
At the end of the interview, he gave his most core and most serious advice: he received many private messages from debtors, and he strongly discouraged debt transactions.
Once you have debt, the risk you can bear is very low, but the risk you face is very high. Debt will greatly distort the trading mentality, make people lose patience to wait for opportunities, and eventually collapse in the normal fluctuations of the market.
He believes that making money, especially making money in the trading market, is essentially a process of waiting for opportunities. Patience is the highest virtue.
As Buffett said, no one wants to get rich slowly. So, you have to go against human nature and be willing to wait for time to make you rich. Slow wealth is king.
This philosophical saying is not only a summary of his trading career, but also an ultimate reminder to all market participants. In this infinite game against greed, fear and human weakness, the final victory belongs to those practitioners who can make friends with time.
Disclaimer
This article is for reference only. This article only represents the authors views and does not represent the position of OKX. This article is not intended to provide (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) an offer or solicitation 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 for your specific situation. Please be responsible for understanding and complying with local applicable laws and regulations.
