Building Advanced Crypto Market Awareness: Demystifying Secondary Funds, Simplifying KOL Filtering
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Building Advanced Crypto Market Awareness: Demystifying Secondary Funds, Simplifying KOL Filtering
Spending time drinking and chatting with VC founders will help you grow in the industry more than anything else.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: ZTZZ ฿
I'm practically being treated like an HR by my friends—everyone comes to me asking for female teammates, operations staff, BDs, and the craziest part is someone even asked me for a CEO. Jokes aside, on the verge of hitting 10K followers, let me share some advanced insights about the crypto space. This ended up being over 3,000 words, but trust me, you’ll gain something valuable by reading through.
Secondary Market Funds
1. The vast majority of secondary market funds only make money during bull markets; surviving bear markets without losing everything is already a win;
2. Do not invest in any secondary fund managed by traders who aren't native to crypto. Never invest in funds launched by traders from A-shares,港股,美股, or futures markets entering crypto;
3. In my personal experience, a good trading team at a secondary fund should consist of no more than three people;
4. I personally don’t recommend retail investors invest in secondary funds because it’s extremely hard for them to find genuinely good ones;
5. If you insist on investing, remember that returns reported by secondary funds can be fabricated—live trading data can also be fake. Talk less with marketers, talk more with actual traders. At its core, investing in a secondary fund means betting on the trading team itself.
KOLs
1. Understand this first: people whose primary identity is being a KOL are generally not worth following. People who have real jobs in crypto and happen to share insights as KOLs are worth your attention. Those who’ve reached the top of the industry and openly share their methodologies deserve special focus;
2. Apply subtraction, not addition, when curating KOLs. Gradually filter those you follow. Understand how they actually make money—the more diversified their income streams across ecosystems, the more likely they are to provide genuine value and avoid dumping on their audience;
3. There are niche-specific KOLs focused on areas like NFTs, DeFi, inscriptions, farming, etc. Focus on those who’ve made significant profits in these niches, developed their own methods, and consistently share knowledge. These KOLs are usually top-tier retail traders, though often limited by strong path dependency and poor performance outside their niche. If you can sense sector rotation, you can effectively leverage their frameworks and information;
4. For secondary trading KOLs, knowing three to five is enough. Ideally, maintain offline friendships with one or two. Once you develop solid trading skills yourself, these trader friends—who understand your mindset—will be honest with you and offer crucial warnings at key moments;
5. Don’t trust KOLs shouting loudly on Twitter, calling you “bro”! Don’t trust those bragging daily about wealth or elite backgrounds! And never believe their profit screenshots or so-called insider tips!
Exchanges
1. The ecosystems of major exchanges and small exchanges are entirely different beasts;
2. An exchange’s primary goal is user growth; profitability comes second;
3. I always recommend newcomers start learning on big exchanges;
4. Major exchanges and VC arms that incubate projects internally serve as the黄埔 Military Academy for talent in crypto;
5. Never assume big exchanges won’t rug pull or act maliciously.
VCs
1. Top-tier VCs and small VCs are completely different species. You can safely ignore any VC that hasn’t lived through a full bull-bear cycle. Every bull market spawns new VCs that boast loudly, then lose everything—they often lack coherent investment logic, though they usually believe they have one;
2. A VC’s main source of profit comes from primary investments, but the margins in crypto primary investing have been declining over successive cycles. Most VCs didn’t make money this year;
3. If you get a chance to talk with VCs, pay close attention when they discuss failed, low-quality investments—this will help you the most;
4. Drinking and chatting with VC founders offers the greatest benefit for your industry development;
5. The right way to learn from VCs: 1) Join one. 2) Don’t rely on their research reports or shilling calls. Instead, systematically study what a given VC invests in, their logic, how the project launches, its marketing strategy, listing performance, whether the VC profited, and if the project succeeded. Track the entire chain and think independently.
Technology
1. Most projects have terrible tech—even those hyped by retail as technological marvels. To truly understand a project’s technology, you need to spend considerable time learning fundamentals and engaging with crypto geek circles;
2. Technology itself can be marketed;
3. While technology isn’t everything in a project, it defines the ceiling;
4. Avoid listening to active internet engineers talking about crypto tech—blockchain’s technical community is entirely separate from mainstream tech. Most of these people are clueless yet arrogant;
5. Never mythologize crypto geeks, nor blindly follow their coin picks, but respect them!
Marketing
1. Projects led by teams unfamiliar with marketing are doomed to fail;
2. If a project’s operations director comes from traditional corporations or internet companies without proven crypto track records, the project will likely crash. Conversely, if the ops director has a background in MLM (multi-level marketing), you should pay close attention;
3. Most project teams execute marketing poorly. A robust operational network includes: operational framework, brand building, community management, crisis PR, social media strategy, and channel maintenance;
4. A top-tier operations director brings extensive internal resources. They update their marketing networks every bull market, ensuring ad channels remain effective and strategies stay current. The earlier a skilled ops director joins, the greater momentum they bring to a project. I often hear founders say: “Our ops director messed up—he spent heavily on KOL promotions but brought zero traction, Z Boss save us.” Next time, please don’t come to me about this. Also, now you know how many KOLs really make money;
5. Talk to exceptional operations directors—you’ll notice they share common traits. When they go solo, they tend to build highly successful ventures. Watch them closely. For example, the founder of a leading second-tier exchange started as an ops director.
BD
1. I don’t recommend newcomers start careers in BD. Connecting with many people quickly leads to anxiety and mental chaos, making it hard to clarify your earning model;
2. Strong projects don’t need BD; weak projects gain nothing from BD;
3. BD fundamentally relies on social skills—but since social ability is a basic human trait, unless yours is exceptional, your position in the ecosystem remains fragile;
4. BD professionals should acquire additional skills to strengthen their competitiveness among peers.
I wasn’t planning to cover BD—it's mostly irrelevant to retail—but since I wrote it anyway, consider this career guidance.
Project Teams
1. Top-tier project teams possess resources far beyond retail imagination. They’re often jointly incubated by industry elites. Always align yourself with top projects;
2. A typical crypto project team’s direct profits fall into two categories: funds raised during fundraising and gains from secondary markets. High-quality teams lead VCs and many retail investors to profit off latecomers; average teams lead VCs to profit off retail; teams ready to exit profit off VCs; and clueless teams lose money inexplicably;
3. Projects across different sectors exhibit distinct characteristics. Narratives exist in layers: top-tier narratives spark revolutions, secondary narratives attract capital, third-tier create wealth effects, fourth-tier are meaningless. I've crafted full narrative systems for many projects before—the narrative tier determines a project’s ceiling;
4. “Investing in projects means investing in people” is a well-known saying—and it holds true in crypto. If you ever meet a project founder, take time to talk and observe carefully;
5. I always encourage retail investors to try launching their own projects—even simple meme coins—because it rapidly elevates your understanding. In crypto, project teams sit at the center of everything;
There’s much more to say about project teams, but perspectives differ greatly between retail and professionals. I’ll save that for another time.
Retail Investors
1. Don’t remain passive prey born out of inherent disadvantage—push forward and dance with the scythes;
2. You’ll never earn money beyond your comprehension unless by luck—but whatever you gain by luck, you’ll eventually lose by incompetence—BY: "Wealth Flow";
3. Crypto rewards shifts in character and awareness, not effort. Unless you change your personality, your circle, or your reading material—break your existing cognitive patterns—you’ll be exactly where you are now five years later. Choice outweighs effort. When opportunity arises, dare to go all-in, hold firmly, cultivate sound thinking, join quality circles, develop solid logic—none can be missing. Ultimately, money flows from impatient minds to calm ones.—BY: Shenyu;
4. You’re here to make money. Don’t harbor long-term disdain or hostility toward anything—whether VC tokens, Ponzi schemes, MEMEs, or dumb KOLs. Arrogance is the biggest enemy of discovering alpha in crypto.
You may notice I didn’t offer any tactical advice for retail investors in these five points—only principles. That’s because retail has seen too many KOLs preaching success formulas. Those capable would’ve already left retail behind. Only a little push or one key insight is needed to pull someone out. But most people are destined to remain retail forever. For them, merely avoiding becoming韭菜is already the best possible outcome. For such individuals, the essence of investing is:
Farmers, pick a scythe.
Let me end this article with a dialogue from Donald Trump:
“Mr. Trump, you've done great things in your life, and I just wonder how do I as an average person begin?”
“Well, first of all, never think of yourself as average. You started off with the wrong question, because you're not average. You've got a lot going. I see you're smart, I see you're very beautiful, and you're right against there.”
A girl asked Trump: “Mr. Trump, you’ve achieved so many great things in life. I just want to know—as an ordinary person, where should I start?”
Trump replied seriously: “First, never consider yourself ordinary. You began with the wrong question. Because you’re not average. You have so much potential. I can see you’re intelligent, very beautiful, and standing right there.”
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