Dialogue with Ansem: This pullback is still a buying opportunity on dips, STRK, PUMP, HYPE, and GRASS remain undervalued

Compiled & edited by: TechFlow

Guest: Ansem (well-known crypto trader, founder of BullpenFi and Market Bubble)

Host: Market Bubble

Podcast source: Market Bubble (https://x.com/blknoiz06/status/2110252627799966022)

Original title: Market Bubble ep.23: my full conversation

Air date: October 15, 2026

Key Takeaways

• The first major pullback was a healthy shakeout: The first significant correction since the June lows primarily flushed out highly leveraged long positions without breaking the macro uptrend. Institutional demand for the fundamentals of tokenization and stablecoins remains solid.
• The 70/30 position management rule: Adhere to allocating 70% of capital to core spot holdings like BTC and SOL, with 30% in flexible capital to chase high-beta hotspots and MemeFi. Never overuse high leverage during choppy periods.
• The real vitality of MemeFi: Memes are not a fleeting speculative frenzy but the most natural on-chain vehicle for retail capital and the attention economy. This is the sector with the most genuine retail traffic in this cycle.
• Solana and Pump.fun flywheel: Pump.fun has already demonstrated astonishing cash flow generation capabilities. Solana's ecosystem moat as the primary battleground for high-frequency trading and retail entry is irreplaceable, and its long-term target remains expansive.
• Momentum trading and scaling out: While paying attention to high-momentum assets like HYPE, traders must resist greed and strictly execute tiered, staged profit-taking discipline to ensure paper profits are converted into real money.

2. Key Insights

• "A lot of people were scared by this pullback, but from late June to now, this is the first real correction we've experienced. It only cleared out aggressive leverage—the broader market fundamentals remain rock solid."
• "My portfolio iron rule is always 70/30: 70% in core holdings that let you sleep at night no matter what happens, and the remaining 30% for surfing and catching Alpha. If you bet your entire net worth on high-risk plays, one shakeout will take you out completely."
• "MemeFi isn't going away. It has become the most direct way for retail capital to participate in the market. Don't try to force traditional VC frameworks onto it—understanding where attention flows is the key to trading."
• "Pump.fun isn't just a token launch tool—it's a terrifying protocol-level cash flow machine. It brings a constant stream of users and trading activity to the entire Solana ecosystem."
• "In crypto, the hardest thing isn't finding a 100x token—it's calmly scaling out while everyone else is euphoric. Don't let paper wealth become a fleeting memory."

3. Main Text

1. The First Market-Wide Deep Pullback and the 70/30 Position Strategy

Host: The entire market recently experienced a round of violent volatility, and many investors and communities felt extremely anxious. As someone who has always been on the front lines of trading, how do you view the current market correction?

Ansem: I know many people are feeling down right now, but objectively speaking, this is the first real significant pullback we've experienced since the market bottomed in late June. In any healthy uptrend, corrections are an essential deleveraging process. During this decline, those highly leveraged longs did get hit with concentrated liquidations, but that actually clears the baggage for future price action. I'm currently in Singapore attending events, and I can genuinely feel the atmosphere on the ground—institutional investor enthusiasm is extremely high, and many top practitioners and smart money who survived the last bear market are active here. Everyone is earnestly pushing forward with infrastructure like tokenization and stablecoins. The overall fundamentals haven't wavered at all.

Host: In this highly volatile market environment, how do you personally manage positions and guard against drawdowns?

Ansem: I always practice and recommend the 70/30 portfolio rule. That is, I keep 70% of my capital firmly locked in long-term core spot assets like Bitcoin and Solana—positions I won't easily waver on no matter how many 20% pullbacks come. The remaining 30% is my flexible capital, specifically for pursuing high-beta short-term opportunities, participating in MemeFi, or discovering emerging ecosystem Alpha. This structure ensures you maintain absolute psychological control during violent market shakeouts—you won't get liquidated to zero from being all-in on high-risk small caps, nor will you miss out on hot sector gains from sitting entirely on the sidelines.

2. Derivatives Landscape Evolution and Trading Risk Management Insights

Host: We've noticed that competition between offshore derivatives markets and regulated exchanges is intensifying, from Coinbase launching perpetual contracts to the rise of on-chain derivatives protocols. What does this mean for ordinary traders?

Ansem: The evolution of the derivatives trading landscape is reshaping the depth of asset liquidity. People used to be accustomed to offshore platform trading habits, but with the rise of regulated channels and on-chain high-frequency perpetual contract protocols, liquidity distribution has become more fragmented and complex. The most important lesson in trading is to never underestimate the impact of cascading liquidations. During periods of extreme volatility, the battle between longs and shorts often leads to momentary wicks that deviate from spot fundamentals. Traders must learn to control individual risk exposure based on depth, rather than simply betting on direction.

3. Bitcoin Macro Certainty and the MemeFi Investment Thesis

Host: You mentioned Bitcoin, Zcash, and the evolution of MemeFi in your long posts. Many traditional institutions may find it hard to understand why retail investors are so fanatical about Memes. How do you see the coexistence of these two?

Ansem: They're really two sides of the same coin. Bitcoin is the undisputed macro digital gold and decentralized store-of-value anchor—it solves the problem of hedging against sovereign credit risk and accommodating global liquidity. That's the cornerstone of all assets. MemeFi, on the other hand, is the ultimate expression of the attention economy. Retail investors flock to Memes because traditional VC tokens have structural flaws—massive unlocks, high valuations, and low float—that make it impossible for ordinary people to benefit. Memes provide an open, transparent, fair-launch arena, and they've evolved into a unique cultural-financial form. As long as speculative human nature remains unchanged, MemeFi will thrive in different forms every cycle.

4. StarkWare, Pump.fun, and Solana Ecosystem Price Targets

Host: Speaking of on-chain ecosystems, Pump.fun's recent revenue and activity have shocked the entire industry. Combined with Solana's overall performance, what's your latest assessment of the competitive landscape in the public chain sector?

Ansem: Pump.fun is one of the most incredible killer apps of this cycle. It's essentially a protocol-level cash flow machine with hundreds of millions in annualized revenue, extremely lean and efficient. While some criticize it for intensifying PVP (player-versus-player), it's undeniable that it lowered the barrier to token issuance to an extreme and locked in massive on-chain trading activity in a short time. Precisely because of flywheels like Pump.fun, Solana's network effect as the primary host for retail users has been thoroughly solidified. In public chain competition, value is where users are and where liquidity is. Based on the current ecosystem prosperity, I have a very optimistic expectation for Solana's long-term valuation ceiling.

5. Hyperliquid (HYPE) Momentum Trading and the Scaling-Out Rule

Host: On the high-growth front, Hyperliquid and the upcoming HYPE token have received tremendous attention. For these types of extremely strong momentum new assets, what operational advice do you give traders?

Ansem: Hyperliquid is one of the best examples in recent years of an on-chain product experience approaching that of a centralized exchange. Its community stickiness and trading volume are very solid, and the HYPE launch is undoubtedly the core catalyst the market is watching. However, the more a momentum asset has unanimous market bullishness, the more traders need to maintain absolute clarity. My advice: follow decisively when upward momentum is established, but you must preset tiered profit-taking levels. When an asset doubles or reaches key resistance levels, be sure to withdraw at least your principal and let profits ride with the market. In the crypto world, what ultimately determines your wealth level is never the number on your screen at the peak—it's how much capital you've actually put in your pocket.