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Insilico Terminal Podcast Episode 8 - Ponzi Maxi
65 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Ponzi shares his path from early on-chain trading to joining Spartan Group, reflecting on big wins, losses, and emotional lessons along the way. He talks about the Hyperliquid airdrop era, shifting from altcoins to perps, and developing structured strategies in a team environment. The conversation covers trading psychology, DEX competition, public sales, and the evolving airdrop meta - ending with insights on adaptability, letting go of old bags, and staying sharp in changing markets.
00:00:00 Intro, Ponzi’s background, getting into crypto and early trading years
00:06:08 Big wins and losses - Rollbit, Trader Joe, emotional trading lessons
00:10:25 Hyperliquid airdrop, airdrop farming mindset, and lessons from missed opportunities
00:15:05 Transition to perps trading, shift away from on-chain alts, adapting strategy
00:26:16 Joining Spartan Group - team trading, structure, learning valuation frameworks
00:33:09 Trading psychology, loneliness, social aspects, and adapting over time
00:38:11 Thoughts on Lighter, Hyperliquid, perp DEX competition and market outlook
00:55:01 Public sales meta, Echo deals, MegaETH, and evolution from airdrops
01:06:08 Closing thoughts - trading advice, adaptability, dumping old bags, final wrap-up
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome everyone to a new episode of the Silico Terminal podcast. As you can see, you I am now on cam as your host for your enjoyment.
00:00:27
Speaker
Um... We are recording this not for the first time because we had some technical difficulties behind us, hopefully. But this is ah the final charm. It will work.
00:00:39
Speaker
We're all relaxed and happy and looking forward to the conversation. And I have with me today and new guest. His name is PonziMaxi. And he will now introduce himself to the audience for the final time because this will be the final. break Yeah.
PonziMaxi's Trading Journey
00:00:57
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Uh, my name is Ponzi and I'm a trader. I work at Spartan Group in the Liquid Fund, but before that I was trading for myself starting in early 2019 and then, um, moving into more active trading in 2021.
00:01:18
Speaker
Um, and then, yeah, i just recently joined Spartan a couple of months ago. um So yeah, but I've been in crypto for about six years.
00:01:32
Speaker
um I think we like miss out on a bunch of jokes here that we had in the in the earlier versions. it's a shame. It's cringe to like just retell them. No, it doesn't it like get the same if you just it again. It's fine. um So we're just getting into the serious content immediately.
00:01:48
Speaker
um You got started with trading in 2021. What was like for you? like Did you just start trading perps? What was your strategy like? How long did it take you to be profitable? Yeah, so I i did start in 2021,
00:02:07
Speaker
I kind of dabbled a little bit with trading here and there before that. So I first got into crypto just buying spot Bitcoin and I did everything right. Like I used Coinbase Pro to minimize the fees and then I withdrew it to a hardware wallet.
00:02:27
Speaker
Like, you know, I was a good, i was a good crypto participant. Yeah. um I also did stupid shit. I remember for my birthday, I got 60 pounds and immediately loaded it onto bit max hundred X leverage long on Bitcoin.
00:02:45
Speaker
And in like less than a minute, it was all gone. And I was just like, my stomach, what have I done? That's kind that's kind of cute.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah. So another, another, um, Similar scenario was when I was withdrawing that spot Bitcoin from Coinbase to my hardware wallet. um the i basically did it and I didn't realize Bitcoin wasn't instant.
00:03:18
Speaker
So yeah I refreshed and it wasn't there. And I was like, holy shit, it was gone from the exchange. i was like, holy shit, where is it gone? And then when I refreshed the like software, the deposit address had rotated.
00:03:34
Speaker
and i I didn't realize like it will it's still fine, it will still work, but the deposit address had rotated. so i thought I'd sent this 200 pounds off into the ether. and I genuinely had a complete pit in my stomach until it finally arrived about an hour later.
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah. But anyway, sorry for the ramble.
Trading Strategies and Successes
00:03:54
Speaker
um So yeah, i I mostly held spot between 2019 and 2021, but I dabbled a little bit here and there with like perps on BitMEX.
00:04:07
Speaker
um Obviously lost my money there because I didn't know what I was doing. um I did a little bit of altcoin stuff. so um Coins like, I think, Aave, Sushi. um It was like, I think it was DeFi coins, but it was post like DeFi summer.
00:04:34
Speaker
I didn't really, I don't think I was around for, I didn't get the Uni AirDrop or anything like that. I wasn't active on chain at that point. um But yeah, my trading has evolved quite a lot since I started because at the end of the day, I'm just trying to make money, which means doing whatever I, making money the easiest way that i think is possible trading at that time.
00:05:02
Speaker
um So yeah, depending on what the market conditions are like, the way that I trade changes.
00:05:12
Speaker
Which makes sense. um But how what what did you trade like back then? what What were some of the stages that you have went through during the years? so What were the things that made you money?
00:05:24
Speaker
Sure. Okay. So the major things that um made me money were first of all, the spot Bitcoin trade, because that was pretty much a like 10 X plus um because I bought pretty early in 2019.
00:05:43
Speaker
um, between like four to eight K and then ended up selling it 40, 50, 60. So prior to that, I mean, I ah just didn't even really have enough money to trade.
00:05:56
Speaker
Then in 2021, I had more, still not a lot, but enough to kind of make a lot of money for someone who's not used to making a lot of money.
00:06:07
Speaker
Um, um And yeah sorry, I forgot the question. um I think the the various ways that you made money throughout the years, is because you said that's like your your trading strategy. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah.
00:06:23
Speaker
So the the major the major way actively trading that I made money um previously was on chain. So because I would bridge to chains early, um i would like try out all of the projects on there to try and figure out what the best one was.
00:06:41
Speaker
So for example, roll bit on Solana. I was very early to roll bit because, yeah, I bridged over before, like when Jupiter was a new project on Solana.
00:06:56
Speaker
And I basically I've allocated quite heavy to it and um basically front round the Ethereum migration and also like when a bunch of people started chilling out on Twitter like Hasaka and stuff like that.
00:07:14
Speaker
So I managed to get in really early and then I sold the Pico top. ah So that was a great trade. The other good trade, although um leaves me with a lot of PTSD was Trader Joe on Avalanche.
00:07:31
Speaker
It was a similar story where I bridged early to the chain um and I was like testing out the projects to see which one I thought was the best thing to buy.
Lessons from Mistakes and Emotional Trading
00:07:43
Speaker
Originally, i made the wrong choice. So um originally bought, I kind of spread my bets into ah Pangolin, Yield Yak and Trader Joe.
00:07:57
Speaker
ah But then i remember because I wasn't sure what the best one was. I just knew that I wanted exposure to it. yeah And then I remember I saw Haseka tweet um and an Iceberg tweet, which was basically like hinting at Trader Joe.
00:08:15
Speaker
and And at that point in time, I was allocated to all three. But my thought process as a as a trader had developed to the point where I was above my own e ego.
00:08:29
Speaker
and I was like, okay, if I just think about this rationally, there's someone with like hundreds of thousands of followers who has only just started hinting about this project that I know about.
00:08:41
Speaker
So then I just full, not full ported, but I sold Pangolin, I sold Yieldyak and I went all in on Trader Joe. And then that ended up like, 5X in plus.
00:08:52
Speaker
The issue then was that the numbers got too big for me and I wasn't used to it having a portfolio that was like that big. I made too much too quickly and then I got emotional with it and it was too volatile.
00:09:06
Speaker
So I ended up basically like it It started ranging for a couple of days and I was selling the lows, buying back the highs a couple of times.
00:09:18
Speaker
And then I realized what I was doing, realized what I was doing, but then made the fatal mistake of then my my decision after that was, okay, I'm over trading.
00:09:33
Speaker
i know what I need to do. I just need to buy and hold it now. And so I like bought back in, held it. And I kid you not from that point onwards, it was just down only for about a week straight.
00:09:45
Speaker
yeah And I ended up round tripping all of the gains that I'd made. Like I'd i'd like five X my entire portfolio. i was euphoric.
00:09:57
Speaker
round trip the entire thing. And like, yeah, I just remember coming home one day from the gym and I put a pizza in the oven, like waited for it to cook, took it upstairs, yeah looked at the charts and like, finally it clicked for me what had happened and what I had done.
00:10:15
Speaker
And I just got that sick sinking feeling in my stomach and I couldn't even eat my pizza. I didn't eat anything. i like, I went to bed And I didn't touch crypto for a little while after that.
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah. That was like that's been the most devastating trade I've ever had. And it's kind of informed a lot about the way that I trade now. But um yeah, so one of one of my best trades was also one of my worst trades.
00:10:47
Speaker
Another um good trade that I made was Hyperliquid. So I got a decent Hyperliquid airdrop. It wasn't anything crazy. I really wish that I'd found it more.
00:10:58
Speaker
And now that I know how amazing it was. Everyone. Yeah. But um the thing is, I made an active choice not to farm Hyperliquid because um At the time, the meta was points programs.
00:11:15
Speaker
And I'm i'm like very used to airdrop farming. I've farmed a lot of different projects in different ways. But my the reason why I didn't farm hyperliquid was because it had a very visible points program.
00:11:29
Speaker
And my whole kind of thesis with airdrop farming is that you're trying to get an asymmetric payoff with as little capital as possible. And so the thought process was in a matter where like every single project under the sun is doing a points program.
00:11:46
Speaker
At that point, when it's all visible and like participants can then calculate expected valuations and allocations towards the airdrop, you can end up calculating a like percentage yield if you know how long the program is going to last.
00:12:02
Speaker
And then at that point, you're not airdrop farming, you're just yield farming. And yeah like unless you have a shit a ton of money, it it doesn't make any sense. So I specifically like did not farm hyperliquid because i thought it wouldn't give the asymmetric payoff.
Current Strategies and Market Adaptation
00:12:18
Speaker
However, what i did realize once it had launched, um I realized that I'd kind of like made a mistake. I saw the price action and I saw them buying back a shit ton with the assistance fund.
00:12:32
Speaker
And so then once it had launched, I ended up buying pretty heavy around like $8, $9, $10, and then that the stock. and sold it at thirty one with about sixty percent of the stock yeah I haven't, I didn't trade hyperliquid that great.
00:12:53
Speaker
ended up, um, like buying back some of it in the twenties and then holding it down to the tens. ended up buying quite a lot at 10, but then When that was happening, it was the Trump tariff stuff and macro tariff stuff is one of those areas where i kind of accept that i don't know enough to form a judgment on it.
00:13:20
Speaker
And so then I was like, okay, I need to like, no, just need to protect myself. So ended up selling back two thirds of what I bought at the bottom. So I i did increase exposure, but not in a great way. And then obviously I've held the rest up until where it's at now where I started taking some off.
00:13:39
Speaker
So yeah.
00:13:42
Speaker
ah remember I remember, think Frentech was the first thing that introduced points programs. what sort even like yeah they might have and I feel like Frentech made it like a thing when they distributed them every Friday.
00:13:55
Speaker
And I think back then I was also like skeptical um during like early Hyperliquid days of where it would go or how much ah how much it would be worth to actually farm that.
00:14:06
Speaker
Because it was like a good protocol, but like it wasn't as developed as it is now and like dex trading wasn't as great as the sex experience. So I also made the mistake of of under farming it.
00:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think Frentech, like as a points program, died the moment it became possible to self farm. ah just by buying your own tokens and um because that that just defeats the whole point of it.
00:14:34
Speaker
But they as far as I remember, they don't they didn't penalize that as heavily as they should have because at the end of the day, they don't care because they're still getting their fees or whatever it is.
00:14:47
Speaker
So yeah, I didn't really farm Frontech either. I still got a decent airdrop, but yeah, I didn't really farm it. I mean, I guess yeah they didn't really care because it was basically like a rock, more or less. I mean, the the person that did it kind of like disappeared afterwards and made a bunch of money.
00:15:05
Speaker
But I also got my airdrop, so I'm um'm ah um'm keeping quiet. We close both eyes and and don't don't speak about it anymore. I guess nowadays you mostly ah trade perps, if I'm right, or yeah like in the last couple of years.
00:15:21
Speaker
so yeah as far as like actively trading goes yes i mostly trade perps um i don't really do on chain alts anymore um i why is that what I don't, it's not the same, it's not the same environment that it was ah couple of years ago. Like, you know, a couple of years ago, a new chain would launch and you could go onto it, see what the new projects were and like stuff would be undervalued.
00:15:54
Speaker
But now i think everything is, everything is already venture funded. And so, By that point then, like by the time that the tokens go live, their valuations are already too high.
00:16:13
Speaker
um so you know like When I bought Trader Joe, i think it was at like 30 million market cap and went up to whatever it went up to. I can't remember. um Amid like a speculative fever with Avalanche Rush and um just in general, a lot of speculative capital willing to bid shit on chain in 2021.
00:16:37
Speaker
It's just not the same environment anymore. So yeah it doesn't offer the same alpha. um I actually, as far as like where I make most of my money now, less of it is from perps and more of it is having heavy spot allocations when I want to be risk on and then being like almost completely risk off when I don't want any risk.
00:17:05
Speaker
So like see really trying to catch like big swing trades, um, at Spartan we do, um, like long, short discretionary trading and that is more, um,
00:17:21
Speaker
That's on a shorter time frame. that's like short to medium time frame, whether it's a couple of weeks or a couple of months. But for me, especially more recently, um I've been more focused on macro moves with spot because I mean, if you look at Bitcoin, it's like been range bound for months.
00:17:42
Speaker
And so is there much alpha in holding your entire net worth in it if it's just ranging? In my opinion, there's not. So I'm really just trying to be allocated when I think we're actually going to trend.
00:17:58
Speaker
and then not allocated when we're not. And then I'm always like we were talking about earlier. Um, I think there's more and more alpha recently in private sales and public sales because there's a big discrepancy between TGE valuations versus even public sale valuations.
00:18:18
Speaker
And you can capture a massive profit in such a short period of time from those. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean like TLDR long answer cut short.
00:18:28
Speaker
I just tried to trade however best I feel like the market is rewarding at that time. So you never really short in your own personal trading.
00:18:40
Speaker
I i don't really ah don't really like shorting. ah Most of the time, i think your energy is better spent elsewhere. um Like the problem in crypto, I think with shorting is that the stuff that you kind of want to short a lot of the time that supply is completely controlled anyway.
00:19:05
Speaker
So that just, that eliminates the, that eliminates the point in shorting it because you're just going to get blown up. And then I don't really want to short crypto as an asset class, because I think generally speaking, it continues to go up.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah. um
00:19:26
Speaker
And yeah, that like, there is, there is stuff you can short. But i I don't do it that much personally, no. ah just think... I mean, the return profile is also quite different since you can't... Yeah, the return profile is different.
00:19:44
Speaker
Also, when it comes to perp, like, I mean, if you're shorting, you have to do perps, right? And when I'm perps trading, I pretty much hate, I hate being in a losing position.
00:19:56
Speaker
yeah so my style when I'm trading perps is, I will very happily cut a position if the moment that I enter, I'm not immediately in profit because most of the try what most of the time when I'm like choosing my entries, I'm really trying to catch other people's liquidations.
00:20:20
Speaker
to the point where i don't really consider the price that I got to be a fair price. And so if it is to then return to that price, it tells me, okay, this is clearly not that great of a price.
00:20:33
Speaker
yeah um So like my favorite time to do that is during bullish conditions. you You find out what the strongest coin is, like what's performing the best.
00:20:45
Speaker
And then you're just a catching licks on that on the trend up. it's like my favorite pubs trade to take. But even, even now in when we're trending less, like I've been taking a couple of shorts recently on BNB.
00:21:00
Speaker
Um, and if I'm not like almost immediately in profit, I just cut. Yeah. Yeah. I've been, I've been specifically as a couple of reasons.
00:21:13
Speaker
Um, so it started off So i'll I'll explain the trade setup. The trade setup was that we had this massive flash crash across the market and then BNB somehow bounced the strongest and it actually broke new highs, which typically in the way that I view markets, that would then be a signal. Okay. I want to, I need to keep an eye on BNB because yeah at some point I want to be longer, right? It's showing the most strength, but then,
00:21:47
Speaker
um On one hand, it felt fishy to me because of the massive flash crash that we'd seen and Binance's involvement in it. But specifically then the real catalyst for the trade was the China Renaissance news coming out.
00:22:04
Speaker
um China Renaissance Bank, they were talking about like a 600 million investment into BNB, but the token barely moved wendy when this news came out.
00:22:16
Speaker
um And so that put the thought in my head, okay, maybe BNB's strength um in the bounce was not actual strength. it was people front running this news basically insider trading it.
00:22:31
Speaker
So um that was the like main trigger for the short with a stop above the highs of just like, okay, if it goes above here, I'm wrong. but short there.
00:22:42
Speaker
And then the trade, it was a great trade because it just materialized over time, never went above my entry. um As more people understood Binance's involvement in the flash crash, um they had like 20 billion in outflows.
00:23:00
Speaker
um And yeah, was just so so that was the kind of like trade setup itself from a mechanical standpoint and like ah catalyst standpoint.
00:23:11
Speaker
Then the other part of it was like kind of ideological because Binance is just like, I don't really know what's happened or happening to them, but they've just been doing some really like negative things. I think for the market, like the Binance alpha meme coin pump and dumps, the, um,
00:23:39
Speaker
I mean, what else? The Binance Alpha, the whole flash crash itself with the um the assets.
00:23:50
Speaker
I can't remember exactly which ones it is, but it's like Binance, all Binance, all of that. um ah just I just I'm not really a fan of the direction that they're going um and like CZ's activity on Twitter with regards to hyperliquid, stuff like that. So like, I mean, the majority of the trade was um like just a purely just a trader mindset, but i I kept shorting it because i mean, it kept giving great entries on the balance.
00:24:26
Speaker
And at at that point it was a little bit ideological. ah yeah i felt like I was getting one back, even though I wasn't even i wasn't even affected by the crash either because I didn't have any perps open.
00:24:39
Speaker
And the spot that I held at the time was um just hype. I'd already sold all my Bitcoin. So I didn't even have much exposure to the market, didn't have any pubs. But yeah, I just yeah.
00:24:54
Speaker
But didn't you kind of break your own rule there since it's quite supply controlled? it i think Yes, I mean, it is, but it's it's not When I say so yes, the supply is controlled by CZ, but he's not it's not to the same level as some of these other coins, which I won't mention.
00:25:16
Speaker
um but i was just thinking a bit cheeky, but there is a difference. Yeah. yeah It feels like these other coins, they are specifically bundled with the idea of pump and dumping them.
00:25:33
Speaker
Whereas Binance is clearly not, or BNB is clearly not one of those coins. Yeah.
Team Trading Dynamics at Spartan Group
00:25:39
Speaker
um So yeah, but you do make a good point, like, i I've never shorted Tron and I would never short Tron when Plasma was coming out.
00:25:50
Speaker
i was I was very bullish on Plasma before it launched and the kind of natural other side of being bullish Plasma is being bearish on Tron because it's going to cannibalize it its market.
00:26:04
Speaker
But that's the the difference between being like an analyst and being a trader is like do you Do you actually want to short Tron when Justin Sun holds 70% of it or whatever?
00:26:19
Speaker
There's no point. No.
00:26:23
Speaker
That makes sense. I want to talk a bit more about Spartan with you. Sure. i Could explain a bit what it is and what your role is there, what it's like to work there?
00:26:36
Speaker
Sure. So Spartan Group is a hedge fund in crypto. um There's multiple arms to it. So we have the Liquid Hedge Fund. We have ah the Venture Fund and we also have advisory.
00:26:53
Speaker
So I work in the Liquid Fund. um We're a team of four analysts, including myself. And then we report up to Kelvin, who's the CIO.
00:27:05
Speaker
um And yeah, we're just discretionary long short. um Yeah, everyone gets to trade whichever assets they want.
00:27:16
Speaker
um It's fundamentals based. So we're tracking we're tracking metrics like um fees, revenue, um how how much fees perhaps the underlying chain itself is making.
00:27:32
Speaker
um multiples compared to each other, unlocks, particularly when we look at short targets, unlocks are probably the easiest um like factor and in ah and a short trade.
00:27:49
Speaker
And then also things like funding as well um for shorts, because obviously that can go wrong if you're on the wrong side of that.
00:28:00
Speaker
What are some of the biggest things that have like changed for you as a person that has only traded solo before to doing it with a team? So I would say the number one thing is being more formalized on valuations, multiples, um like being more professional when it comes to um spreadsheets and doing things more mathematically.
00:28:31
Speaker
When I was trading myself personally, my valuation framework was, I would say, mostly comparative based where I would have a kind of intuition about how much things should be worth and whether one thing, whether one project should be worth more than another project compared to like in my mind, which one is actually better.
00:28:57
Speaker
Whereas now it's more, Yeah, it's more formalized in the sense of knowing the actual exact activity metrics and being able to compare them objectively.
00:29:11
Speaker
The other thing i would say is um like pitching trades to other people rather than just myself. It was actually probably one of the major reasons why I decided to join Spartan um because Even though my trading has evolved quite a lot over the years, i really felt like I got bored of going over the same trades in my head like a hundred times trying to prove myself wrong.
00:29:46
Speaker
And I felt like the the best way to combat that is to join a team of other smart people and traders who you know can have an actual conversation with you about it.
00:29:59
Speaker
It's very difficult to have that conversation with normal people because they don't yeah understand what trading is. Um, so yeah, pitching ideas to other people.
00:30:11
Speaker
And also i think it makes you stricter in terms of which, which ideas you actually dedicate time to because you know that anything that you're going to pitch, you're really going to have to be able to defend to scrutiny.
00:30:32
Speaker
Um, So, yeah I would say that is probably the the biggest difference.
00:30:43
Speaker
I guess it really discourages you from making more stupid decisions if you have to like go up to someone else and explain it to them, listen to their questions, their criticism, and then defend your idea against it.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it's... It's not ah i mean, I think it's a trade off. Honestly, i think it's it's not a purely positive trade because not every trade has to be like necessarily backed by fundamentals.
00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah. um And so you kind of limit yourself there. I suppose in that case, it's then up to the discretion of like how much freedom you have within the fund. um i'm I'm newly joined. so I would say I still need to like prove myself in in that sense in terms of the ideas that I can bring forward.
00:31:43
Speaker
um But yeah, I think it's a trade off where you have less flexibility, less um freedom, but it then improves your own level of due diligence that you conduct in each trade.
00:31:59
Speaker
What is it like to be with people in in person while doing all of that? I don't think I've ever really like traded presently with with other people around me physically. Yeah. So, I mean, the thing is that Spartan is not like Spartans not making like multiple trades per day per analyst.
00:32:23
Speaker
So it's not like we're all in the office day trading. Um, But it is good to be in the office and have the people there. And ah feel like crypto can be such a catalyst driven market where everything can just flip on a dime if the right news comes out. And it's in times like that where having everyone in the same room at the same time to like discuss and see what everyone thinks is like really invaluable.
00:32:55
Speaker
um And yeah, I think it just levels everyone up that's there.
00:33:02
Speaker
yeah Especially in crypto, since it can be quite lonely, I guess, if you're like just working from home or trading by yourself.
00:33:09
Speaker
You can talk to people on on Telegram and Twitter, but it's not really the same thing as being with someone physically present and actually like living a bit with them, discussing your ideas and stuff like that. 100%.
00:33:21
Speaker
hundred percent I wouldn't like I'm not even the most social person. I can very happy to be on my own and have my own space. But over the years, like people, friends that I had within crypto have just dropped off over time.
00:33:40
Speaker
Yeah, which is obviously really sad because I think back to 2021 and you know having a discord full of like ten people, all of your friends, all of you are making a shit ton of money.
00:33:53
Speaker
All of you are having fun sharing alpha. And then just over time, people drop off, lose interest, lose money, whatever it is.
00:34:05
Speaker
and you don't have that anymore. So especially i think loneliness matters far more if you're losing, like if you're trading is not going well and you're on your own, I think that's really tough.
00:34:21
Speaker
um If you're winning, then it can actually be good to just block everyone out, keep doing what you're doing, and understand why you're winning. Don't stop doing that until it stops working.
00:34:35
Speaker
um But yeah, one of the major reasons for joining Spartan was the the social aspect as well and getting to meet more traders.
00:34:48
Speaker
I'm curious, since you are quite young, did you ever work a normal job before? Since got into crypto quite early?
Transition from Studies to Full-Time Trading
00:34:55
Speaker
Yes. So when I was, i mean, when I was 16,
00:34:58
Speaker
sixteen or 17, I worked in a clothing, a retail clothing store. So that was like a normal job. And then after the second year of university, I did a placement year, which is like a proper job, but you just do it for one year.
00:35:20
Speaker
So I did a finance placement for a year at a from ah like pharmaceutical multinational So that was like a proper job as well.
00:35:33
Speaker
But my difficulty has always been when it comes to working or studying, especially is I always want to spend time doing crypto and I never want to spend time doing that other stuff.
00:35:47
Speaker
Um, And so like when I was at this placement in the pharmaceutical company, like I actually, i think it got me down that I knew that I wasn't performing great at the job, even though I don't give a shit about this multinational pharmaceutical company.
00:36:07
Speaker
The fact that I know that I'm not performing as well as I could like that gets me down. But with crypto, because I'm and and trading because I'm so obsessed with it and I love what I do.
00:36:19
Speaker
I work all day and yeah it's exactly what I want to do. And because I do that, my performance is good and I feel good about that.
00:36:29
Speaker
um So to be honest, I don't think I could ever do anything besides trading. Yeah. No, I really get that. I think there's like this saying, um if like if you love your job, then you never work a day on your life or something like that.
00:36:45
Speaker
I probably just fucked it up. But it's like if you like what you're doing and are like obsessed with it, as you as you explained, that it doesn't really feel like like work because you would do it anyway. And I've definitely felt the same about crypto when I look back at my time when I went studying at university or in previous jobs that I had, where I basically just like sit there and then check the charts or Twitter all day anyway and just like look for an opportunity to to get away from that to do what I really wanted to do, which is crypto, which I get to do now, which I'm very happy and grateful for.
00:37:18
Speaker
um But I can definitely relate in in that manner. yeah I want to circle back a bit. Say what you want i was just going to say. i was just going to say, when I was at uni, 100% spent more time trading and doing crypto than I did actually studying. um Yeah, me too. thankfully i Thankfully, I'd done well enough to the point where once I had actually graduated, it it could make financial sense for me too
00:37:50
Speaker
just go into full-time trading rather than having to like find some graduate job that I don't care about while I still like end up doing trading all the time. Anyway, that was all I was going to say.
00:38:06
Speaker
I wanted to ask um if you have any, because we talked about points programs earlier, if you have any thoughts on on Lighter, which is like the current biggest points program, I guess, and has been quite hyped even after the nuke of like one or two weeks ago now.
00:38:23
Speaker
um The points are still very heavily traded OTC at ah at a huge valuation or like comparatively, relatively, whatever. um Have you farmed that? Do you have any thoughts on that?
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah. so it's another one that I wish I farmed to be honest. this um i get I think i think i have like points or something it's like not a lot I think I used it a couple of times.
00:38:54
Speaker
congress Yeah, i used it. I honestly, I don't even remember trading on it. I used it so little, but I must have traded on it early. i I do remember seeing Jez mention it very, very, very early. it was like the first person I saw mention it.
00:39:11
Speaker
um So I think I tried it on then. That's probably why I have a lot of points because it was so early. but What was I going to say about Lytr?
00:39:22
Speaker
The mistake that i made with Lytr is that I didn't look into the team enough to understand that they were actually a good team. And like I think that that's the kind of like core differentiating factor when it comes to choosing between these perp decks.
00:39:41
Speaker
I do feel pretty bullish on lighter. I mean, everything depends on price, obviously, but as far as the music user experience goes, the tech goes,
00:39:56
Speaker
Everything seems pretty good to me. um i do find the zero fee model to be particularly interesting when it comes to retail traders, because like we've seen that work in stocks.
00:40:12
Speaker
i don't I wouldn't say I have an incredibly high conviction opinion on it because I've seen i've read Stablequant right about why this zero fee model like doesn't really work in crypto. And it's more of a stocks thing.
00:40:33
Speaker
But yeah, I think that anyone with points is going to be very happy. um And I think that I'm unsure whether or not Lytr will continue to have volumes higher than Hyperliquid.
00:40:48
Speaker
like I could see it because it's zero fee. In that case, the more I think the metric that makes more sense to look at is open interest rather than volume necessarily, um which obviously hyperliquid still dominates on.
00:41:06
Speaker
But I think broadly speaking, I think that the market for pubs is so massive that they can both win and both are yeah capable teams. So I think they will both win.
Perpetual Swaps and Decentralized Exchanges
00:41:25
Speaker
and so are you going to repeat your repeat your hyperliquid trade of like buying a token? after Potentially i've I've thought about it.
00:41:36
Speaker
I haven't done a I haven't done a proper valuation on it, so I'm not sure at what point I'd be happy buying. um But yeah, I think Hype benefited so massively from the fact that it was like the first project that was making a shit ton in cash flow and then just plowed it all back into the token.
00:41:59
Speaker
And so now from this point onwards, every project is just compared to that. um And I'm not sure.
00:42:09
Speaker
Like with lighter, I know that they're also venture funded. So there's a lot of locked VC bags, which will inevitably come to the market. So it's not quite the same trade.
00:42:21
Speaker
um Yeah. I think I'll have to wait and see. I'm not a hundred percent sure.
00:42:30
Speaker
That makes sense, yeah. I also, i'm I'm a bit more of a fan of lighter nowadays. say have like very, a lot of trouble with trading um stuff outside of the terminal because I'm now so used to it and I don't really like the user experience if I like leave it.
00:42:47
Speaker
um But lighter is decent, especially with the zero fee model and anything like that. I don't have enough points either, obviously I didn't farm enough, but... I just feel like the valuation is quite high. I'm wondering where it will end up. It's definitely an interesting I want to interest interesting yeah, I want to, well, I'm not sure about the light valuation, but with the, we saw so much talk about hyperliquid high valuations.
00:43:16
Speaker
Um, but I want to push back on that because if you, if you think about it from a, like, if you're trying to allocate into the space, and you're trying to construct a long, short book or whatever it is, if you're just trying to think about what you even own.
00:43:33
Speaker
yeah beyond Beyond Bitcoin, if you're looking at alts, I don't think there's a better alt than hype. if If you look at pure fundamentals and then price wise or valuation wise, obviously now it's much larger than what it was when it launched.
00:43:53
Speaker
And that's true. But I don't know when it comes to spot bags, i especially the longer it kind of exists and the like coins just get traded hands and the cost basis rises.
00:44:10
Speaker
At that point, it's, I think less about valuation and it's more about like, one, are you in a risk on environment? And then if you are, what do you want to own?
00:44:22
Speaker
um And I feel like hype pretty much always has to be one of the long picks on the book. Yeah. um Just because there's so few assets within crypto that actually do fit that.
00:44:38
Speaker
like criteria that in my mind, it makes sense for something like hyperliquid to have a valuation premium just based on the fact that it's probably like the pristine asset.
00:44:51
Speaker
But even then, i I don't really think it's that expensive. I think the market for perps is so huge that we'll look back in a couple of years and probably have a three digit hype.
00:45:05
Speaker
But who knows, maybe maybe I'm the top. We'll So you're saying I don't have enough hyperliquid. This time is different. This time is different. sure people will appreciate the hyperliquid chilling on this podcast. Yeah. ah I mean, I like I've traded hyper liquid back and forth.
00:45:28
Speaker
And right now i don't own as much as I've like ever owned. I have held more of it in the past, but that's less a factor of being bearish on hyper liquid specifically and more a factor of just wanting to take risk off the table because I didn't like how Bitcoin looked.
00:45:48
Speaker
And so like one lesson I learned is that I don't think any old is really immune from like if Bitcoin ships the bed and we go into a bit, no, alts escape that it doesn't matter how special it is.
00:46:05
Speaker
um And like, I'm not sure if we said it on the call or just speaking earlier, exchanges are typically like better in that scenario because they have, even though their revenues are cyclical, they still do have actually real revenues. There is some fundamentals to the project, whereas most stuff in crypto is so highly narrative and momentum based.
00:46:28
Speaker
But even then, if you are in that bear market, you don't want to hold alts, you just want stables or shorts. So it's kind of like, yeah.
00:46:38
Speaker
The centralized exchanges are also way more able to like hide their flaws and flas there losses, which something like Hyperliquid... What do you mean?...couldn't really do.
00:46:51
Speaker
I mean, if if there is a... I mean, obviously, for example, with Bybit, if they get hacked and it's on-chain or whatever, then there is... Proof for it. There's like people see it, but for all the the auto-deleveraging stuff or like people blowing up, like it's it's the way that Binance works isn't like Hyperliquid where they have a vault that publicly takes over the positions of people that have been liquidated.
00:47:16
Speaker
They do it like internally and they also like sometimes lose money during those events and you just don't really like hear about that or they they um if people try to come in and try to abuse the exchange as they did in the jelly jelly situation and stuff like that, then you don't really hear about that because they deal with it differently internally because there is no outside supervision or transparency in that regard.
00:47:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think like there are obviously trade offs that you have to make with a perp decks, but I think that
00:47:52
Speaker
I generally think that they're a superior experience to centralized exchanges. And i would say most of that is a regulatory ARB.
00:48:04
Speaker
The fact that you don't have to KYC is pretty massive, not even from a like tax perspective. It's more so like If you have a coin based account or a crack an account or whatever it is, maybe it's just me, but every single year they ask for a new like proof of funds, proof of wealth, proof of income, all of this shit that I don't want to bother having to deal with. yeah I know I'm not doing anything dodgy, but to just have my account frozen every single year,
00:48:41
Speaker
and have to sort this out every every single year is such a pain in the ass. So PURP DEX a superior experience from that point of view. I don't think I have a good read on the future in terms of like where regulations are heading with respect to that.
Future of On-Chain Trading
00:49:02
Speaker
um Like, yeah, I don't know. I feel like because it's such a massive market, you're obviously going to get a lot of players competing in it like Robin Hood and we'll get tried fine. Yeah.
00:49:19
Speaker
yeah So i don't know if like if perhaps just become legal in the US, then is that bullish hyper liquid or is it bearish hyper liquid?
00:49:33
Speaker
What do you think?
00:49:36
Speaker
I think it's probably bullish I would say. i've I've thought about this as well. I've asked some American people because
00:49:46
Speaker
You know, i i as as non-Americans we don't really have a read on how much easier it would be as an American to use exchanges legally or like have legally offered leverage and perps.
00:50:02
Speaker
um Because i I don't know what like the the the struggle of them is currently like or would be like with taxes and just the whole KYC stuff and whatever. like would you If you're currently using Hyperliquid as an American through VPNs or whatever, then would you switch over to the legal Coinbase version if it was, i don't know, I think it already exists, but it's like not not that great or whatever, it's like yeah a bit different than it's supposed to be. But like how how easy would it be? like
00:50:39
Speaker
Because on Hyperliquid, you just make your account. It's on-chain. It's easy to do. And then on the Coinbase, it might just be like a whole process of you going into it and having to KYC and provide all these documents and then tax returns and all of that stuff. But I've also heard some people saying that it's actually a lot easier because the tax returns and stuff are a lot harder to do if you trade on Hyperliquid, for example. Right.
00:51:03
Speaker
Yeah. But I think it's just bullish for perps as a whole, like as a yeah as a thing. So it's also bullish for Hyperliquid. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. I just wanted it to, wanted to hear what you had to say.
00:51:16
Speaker
I think that perhaps becoming legal and just the normalization of perhaps in society is such a massive like step change. It's so massively bullish for the entire sector that, um, even if it means greater competition for hyperliquid, I think the pie grows large enough that they can still capture more than what they're capturing right now. yeah, I think it's bullish.
00:51:43
Speaker
I'm just really i'm really looking forward to... I mean it's it's obvious that more Tradify players will move into the space and also take more of the perp share and whatever, but I'm really looking forward if you can um trade more traditional assets and stocks on chain or on decentralized exchanges or stuff like that.
00:52:02
Speaker
Maybe now through HIP3 that will be more of ah of a thing because so far the options aren't very great or liquid or anything like that. Because what you said reminded me, i tried to make an interactive brokers account, I think.
00:52:16
Speaker
And it's just like like they're asking for for ah birth certificate of my mother or stuff like that basically like it's just yeah it's just so many things that you have to provide so many things that i don't even know how to like tell them because they're asking for it what kind of job i'm doing what what kind of income statements i have and that's that's all just like so such a hassle and very annoying to do and then you also need to do like in iq test kind of or not like an acute test but like that you prove that you understand all these products and stuff like that it's it's just it's so just such an annoying like long process and then you just keep asking for stuff and i'm like
00:52:59
Speaker
I just want to like load up some stable coins onto some exchange or whatever and trade as the same way that I do anything else because stocks are doing a lot better than crypto or at least comparatively. And I'm very glad, for example, that we can trade Pax G or whatever it's called on Hyperliquid to imitate gold.
00:53:21
Speaker
um because a lot of the returns have come more from that side from the traditional side except for crypto other than from crypto and i'm just hoping that the experiences in that the experience in that regard improves because it's very annoying and shady right now Yeah, I think it's the natural evolution of things for just to be able to trade everything on chain.
00:53:46
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I don't really know how much I'll trade stocks on chain because ah don't really trade stocks. Like all I do is just max out my tax free account that we get in the UK.
00:54:00
Speaker
And then I just buy the S and P because, because i trade crypto, I feel like I've realized the difference between someone who understands crypto trading at first is someone that doesn't understand crypto trading at.
00:54:15
Speaker
And so I don't have any reason to believe that that's not me when it comes to stocks. but Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. It's a very different market.
00:54:26
Speaker
I feel like or I've never really personally tried it because I'm not um the the barriers of entry are too high, but I can definitely see that it's like a very different just structure of the market of how it works and why stuff moves away us than we do have in crypto, which we're a lot more aware of because we are in crypto for so long and have experienced it for a long while.
Public vs. Private Sales
00:54:52
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:54:55
Speaker
I think another good topic to talk about is something which we have talked about earlier without recording, um but I think it's it would be nice of you to explain your your thesis and reasoning a bit on public sales, um as we've talked about a bit, I think on here as well, but MegaEath is like doing their public sale very soon.
00:55:23
Speaker
yeah and there have also been others like pump fun and what others have there been actually plasma yeah right yeah and um it's becoming more of a more of a thing that people are doing and i think you have some quite interesting thoughts on the whole endeavor if you'd like to share if you'd like to share them with us so i think that because we pretty much because we've got regulatory clarity in the U S like people are more willing to kind of experiment and push the boat, push the boat.
00:55:59
Speaker
And what that is resulting in is teams feeling comfortable doing ICOs, um, just doing public sales. So, um, previously we did airdrops to try distribute supply a like decentralized way, whatever, whatever.
00:56:22
Speaker
I think now, uh, public sales are at least the last three, but I think public sales in general are pretty much like the next evolution of airdrops, um, whereby projects just price themselves too low in order to not guarantee, but effectively give a very high likelihood that whoever buys it will make money.
00:56:50
Speaker
And it's like, at the end of the day, you're still giving your users free money this time around. They actually have to, they have to buy into it, but it's the, it's a similar dynamic with stock IPOs where they underprice it to give a good first day, like psychologically, whatever. Yeah.
00:57:12
Speaker
But in crypto, I see them as the next evolution of airdrops. And yeah, generally speaking, that the issue that most liquid tokens in crypto face is that Kobe had an article about this, so I'm not saying anything new, but like the majority of price discovery has been confined to the private rounds.
00:57:39
Speaker
And then by the time that it goes public and it actually launches, it's already multi-billion dollar ah FDV or like multi hundred million FDV, whatever.
00:57:51
Speaker
And at that point, like the the trade has happened really i mean like it doesn't even have to necessarily make a short it could just be efficiently priced but the difference is that efficient price discovery has has happened in private markets and then it's just like tokens launched it's live yeah but yeah like if you're trading do you ever want to pay a fair price for something Yeah, the upside is gone. like What's the point?
00:58:19
Speaker
People are in crypto because it it gave an opportunity for you to buy into projects at venture style valuations, but yet be completely liquid.
00:58:32
Speaker
Right. And now you do see private sales. A lot of them are overvalued still. um But you do see some private sales where the valuations are attractive.
00:58:47
Speaker
But I think most of retail should just like avoid, I mean, it's true for anyone, but avoid most private sales. But I think public sales, maybe this will develop over time.
00:58:59
Speaker
I think most of them are worth participating in because they just price them too low. they They want you to win because they want to be kind of evangelized in your eyes.
00:59:11
Speaker
Previously, they did that through an airdrop. Now they're just doing it through public sales.
00:59:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's an interesting point because I also asked in our conversation earlier if they might be like if the gap might close on the trade. But if you view it from the project's perspective as like an ecosystem incentivization where they provide you with early funds to play around, to make you rich, to be a member of their community, then it's actually worth for them to give you some of their token at an advantageous price for you.
00:59:49
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I think the equilibrium comes from um the equilibrium would come from projects coming in and overpricing themselves.
01:00:02
Speaker
um But the like mega ETH, for example, that um that public sale price is not a function of equilibrium. Like it's just arbitrarily set by them.
01:00:17
Speaker
So that's not going to equilibrate.
01:00:22
Speaker
So the the question is whether kind of less good projects, um they probably start doing public sales and then like, you know, you might start off being able to buy these less good projects.
01:00:42
Speaker
at good valuations, but then as people start to understand the matter, then it becomes extractive and projects start pricing themselves higher and higher, at which point it just becomes a cash out.
01:00:54
Speaker
It's less about giving the community an opportunity to make money. It's just giving themselves an exit. Yeah. um So, yeah.
01:01:05
Speaker
It seems like a ah very real risk and something very crypto like for it to eventually happen. Yeah, but I mean, every every single, like, I mean, the the most recent three high profile ones, Plasma was slightly different because it was like a LP deal essentially, but Plasma, Pump and MegaEth were all slam buys, like all in slam buys.
01:01:31
Speaker
Even Pump, which went below the public sale price after it launched, you had like multiple hours after it launched to just get out straight away for an instant 50%.
01:01:45
Speaker
And if you think about the fact that you can slam as much size into these things as you want, like, ah At what other point in the market do you have the opportunity to practically all in something and capture 50% in a day?
01:02:00
Speaker
like yeah you know To get that, people are doing meme coins, but these these are just completely different assets to go from a meme coin to mega ETH.
01:02:11
Speaker
But you can still achieve the same return profile in such a short period of time. with a very different risk. Right. the the The trade changes once the token is actually live, because at that point, the kind of like the inefficiency is then closed and you then have another L2. I'm bullish on MegaETH as a kind of like project.
01:02:39
Speaker
I'm not sure too much yet about the token itself. It depends how much value accrual they can actually give to it. Yeah. Tokonomics.
01:02:50
Speaker
But you know once the token is actually live and it's trading at four billion, five billion, how much further does that thing then have to go versus buying it at one in the public sale and flipping it for a 4X in 12 hours or whatever is.
01:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's a it's it is a good trade. You have convinced me I'm going to participate in the public sale. Do you have any. um Sorry, i was just going to say the, the echo private sales are also like good potentially. Most of them, obviously you don't want to invest in.
01:03:32
Speaker
That's true for venture investing in general, but every so often you get free money deals. Like everyone listening to this podcast should be on echo.
01:03:44
Speaker
Even if you ignore 49 out of 50 deals. It doesn't matter because the one in 50 free money deal, for example, mega E
Finding Investment Opportunities
01:03:56
Speaker
right.
01:03:56
Speaker
It launched at 220 mil.
01:03:59
Speaker
Now you can't put that much size into it. The max cap was 3.7K, but if it's launching at four and a half billion and you're getting a 20X on that.
01:04:11
Speaker
And I mean, it was like blatantly obvious that this was free money. you Again, you don't get opportunities to do that in liquid markets. So everyone listening to this should be on Echo and like just have your eyes open for free money deals But I guess you're not sure. Convince someone to like and invite you to their group now to get like the. Well, most deals, most groups are actually just public.
01:04:41
Speaker
So, um, yes, there are some private groups, but most groups are just public. And if you request to join, they'll accept you. Like they have thousands of members in them from a group lead perspective.
01:04:57
Speaker
If you think about their incentives, they actually, as long as you're not a complete idiot and you're not harassing the team, they don't care who in that group invests.
01:05:07
Speaker
they They just care about the carrier that they're getting on the deal. And then depending on the group, some of them charge higher than others. Some of them like charge no carry at all.
01:05:19
Speaker
They're just doing it out of the goodness of their heart.
01:05:27
Speaker
I think some people from the the plasma sale, didn't they make like seven figures or something out of a couple thousands? Yeah, that was a huge thing. But now you have to like ah give your KYC data to Coinbase to participate. So that's like one of the downsides. Not great.
01:05:49
Speaker
It's not great, but I think you should be willing to do it if, you if you have the potential to make outsized returns. Yeah.
01:06:01
Speaker
But yeah, plasma was a massive, massive one.
Final Trading Advice
01:06:07
Speaker
Do you have any ah any anything else that you would like to talk about as we're coming to to close? I think we covered a decent range of topics so far.
01:06:21
Speaker
I would like to shill or pluck. I have nothing to check out. I have nothing to plug. um
01:06:32
Speaker
What would talk about? draw? Any words of wisdom that you that you words of wisdom people from 24 year old? I mean, you've been in the market for for six years. against fine Okay, okay. what could we I'll give, okay, I'll tell you I'll give advice.
01:06:50
Speaker
I'll give advice to traders, okay? um My advice would be, I mean, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably actually a serious trader.
01:07:02
Speaker
So my advice will be different to you than like music someone that got captured in the pump fund trenches recently. I would, I mean, the way that I look at markets is always from a position of, do I want to hold risk right now or do I not want to hold risk right now?
01:07:21
Speaker
And then if I do, what's the strongest coin? Like try not to, bike try not to um constrict yourself to past.
01:07:33
Speaker
Like if you have a bag from like two years ago because you joined the community, please dump that shit. Please dump it. Never look back. yeah um And the final thing I would say is be open to adapting your style of trading as well.
01:07:53
Speaker
um This is pointed at you, Sokyo, because we were we were talking earlier We were talking about the mega ETH public sale and he said that like he wasn't going to participate because like he's a scalper and he doesn't want to lock his money up for two weeks.
01:08:14
Speaker
Two weeks! These motherfuckers can't hold a trade for two weeks! It's free, it's free actually. Well we we don't know, it's not it's not a non-sale. Actually it's like a month.
01:08:25
Speaker
Whatever. Anyway, my point being, my point being always just think about every trade in terms of how much you can make in what period of time.
01:08:37
Speaker
And like, even if you're a scalper, it can still make sense to do an Echo deal if you're getting into mega ETH, right? Or the public sale if you're getting into mega ETH. um yeah you so i thought Do you want to make money?
01:08:52
Speaker
Yeah. And also recognize that like the market, the way that the markets trade now is a lot different to two years ago. And like one example being anytime we would break all time highs in Bitcoin, you could just like instantly shove and you'd pretty much always get follow through and momentum.
01:09:15
Speaker
Now, We've seen multiple cases where that's not the case. Like it will it will take the highs and then you know trap longs and send it the other way. It doesn't give a fuck anymore. It's too big for that type of momentum to to ah occur unless you have one of those massive macro events like a Trump presidency or something like that.
01:09:38
Speaker
So yeah, try to stay, have your kind of have a pulse on how the the market is trading.
01:09:49
Speaker
That might be the most like generic but advice in the world, but adapt your style of trading to how the market's actually playing out rather than how you want the market to play out.
01:10:04
Speaker
I mean, everyone can can choose if they listen to you or not, but I think adapting is a good good piece of advice and then buying strong stuff, dumping your old bags is all good stuff that many can relate to and and learn from.
01:10:22
Speaker
yeah so thank you very much for coming on here being my guest and bearing with uh with us through the technical difficulties that we had to fight until we could properly record but it was a very good talk and i'm glad you came on and yeah me too appreciate you being here all right that's it for today goodbye everyone