【Bitpush Interview】 From Meta to Memes: The Crypto Journey of Justin
Leaving behind a stable career at tech giant Meta, Justin (@justinweb33) has fully immersed himself in the world of crypto. As an entrepreneur and a self-proclaimed Crypto Degen (aficionado), he has not only successfully bet on trending tokens like PEPE, DEGEN, and TRUMP, amassing impressive gains, but has also learned valuable lessons from the market’s volatile swings.
In this exclusive interview with BeInCrypto, Justin shares his story of transitioning from Meta to crypto, delving into his meme coin investment strategies, the current state of the market, and its future trends. Packed with valuable insights, this article is a must-read for both novice and seasoned meme coin enthusiasts.
Part 1: Diving into the Crypto Rabbit Hole
Q: What was the reaction of your family and friends when you quit Meta to focus on memes and crypto? How do they view meme coins?
Justin: I consider myself more of a Crypto Degen than someone who “quit a big tech job to start a business.” Even before joining Meta, I had decided to dedicate myself to the crypto space long-term. However, I felt the need to gain more experience in technology and teamwork, which led me to Meta. At that time, Meta had a crypto team, with many veterans from the Libra project and the development team for the Move language. Instagram even had an NFT business. But soon after I joined, the bear market hit, and Meta scrapped all blockchain-related projects, focusing on the metaverse and AI instead.
While earning a salary at Meta, I converted most of my income and stock options into cryptocurrencies. In my spare time, I dabbled in various DeFi, NFT, SocialFi, and meme projects. In 2023, we organized the first large-scale Blockchain + AI conference in New York, with over a thousand attendees, inviting many prominent projects. These experiences have been invaluable in my entrepreneurial journey.
My family’s understanding of crypto is “a bit vague, but they are fully supportive.” My dad even searches for news himself, and every time he sees Doge or Trump coin making headlines, he’d ask me, “Did you buy any?” It’s quite endearing.
Q: Did they support your decision to go all in on crypto?
Justin: They were initially hesitant, as giving up such a good position at Meta for an “uncertain” industry was a significant risk. But life is about choices. You can’t have both a stable salary and the opportunity to seize alpha gains. I discussed the long-term certainty of crypto with them, and they eventually respected my decision. My dad even asked me to help him invest in some Bitcoin.
Q: Have you made or lost money investing in meme coins? What do people around you think?
Justin: Overall, I’ve made money, but I’ve lost on more meme coins than I’ve won. My core strategy is to make concentrated bets on memes I believe in, like Pepe in 2023, Degen in 2024, and Trump in 2025. This way, even if most memes go to zero, the few winners can offset the losses.
I’ve seen many friends who “cast a wide net,” buying a little bit of every hot meme. They might hit a 100x coin, but their overall returns are usually mediocre due to the dispersed positions. Their wallets end up filled with worthless tokens.
Q: Did you have any setbacks before entering the meme coin arena?
Justin: Meme investing is a “multidisciplinary subject.” You need to understand trends, sentiment, culture, and investment, and you also need to understand yourself. The biggest lesson I’ve learned in the past two years is that the market can find far more ways to make you lose money than you can imagine.
Part 2: The Current State of Meme Coins
Q: CZ posting about his dog to promote BNB Chain memes, what do you and your friends think about this?
Justin: CZ saw the trend of on-chain transaction volume and wanted to leverage it to boost the activity of the BNB Chain. However, the community’s reaction was not very positive because he didn’t explicitly endorse a specific “Broccoli” version, leading to the emergence of hundreds of versions, which hurt many retail investors and diluted the liquidity.
This move was successful from a marketing perspective, and it did increase the heat of the BNB ecosystem. But the problem is that retail investors’ sentiment is determined by whether they make money or not. Many people lost money, so naturally, there were many complaints. This model creates hype in the short term but may damage user trust in the long run.
Q: Are there still opportunities for BNB ecosystem memes to explode in popularity?
Justin: Of course, there are opportunities, but there’s still a long way to go. The BNB ecosystem’s infrastructure can’t keep up with the demand for meme trading, such as transaction speed, infrastructure, and stability. Solana and Base have gone through many iterations to achieve today’s smooth experience, while BNB was clearly not prepared this time. Pancake and Binance Wallet experienced severe lag, high slippage, and poor stability, making it difficult for many users to trade.
In addition, BNB needs to find its own breakout point instead of simply copying the successful experiences of other chains. Solana has Pump.fun, which standardizes meme issuance, aggregates liquidity, and drives the ecosystem of trading tools. BNB needs a similar breakthrough. I think AI could be a direction, especially AI applications. Chinese people are very good at this field. If we can incubate the “Pump.fun” of the AI era, it may revitalize the entire ecosystem.
Q: What do you think about Argentine President Milei endorsing meme coins and then Rug Pulling?
Justin: Milei probably saw the meme popularity of Trump and other celebrity coins and felt that he could combine crypto to promote the Argentine economy and raise funds for private enterprises. The KIP team may have also offered him some profit sharing. But he probably didn’t expect to be Rug Pulled later, leading to a collapse in the coin price and an explosion of public opinion on social media. So he immediately deleted the post to distance himself from the matter.
Q: How do the crypto traders or VCs around you evaluate this matter?
Justin: Many on-chain experts and founders suffered heavy losses, totaling at least 10 million US dollars. Everyone is very angry about Milei’s deletion of the tweet because this level of endorsement made them dare to take large positions. But crypto is a casino. Every piece of information affects decisions. The key is whether you can predict and respond to new information. For example, when Milei deleted the tweet, did you choose to cut your losses or add to your position?
The most important thing is that traders cannot develop a “loss aversion” mentality due to losses, thinking about bottom-fishing to make up for losses. Instead, they should calmly analyze whether to add to their position or stop the loss, just like when they saw Milei’s tweet. The essence of trading is to pay for your decisions.
Q: Will “national level endorsements” become the new normal for meme coins?
Justin: If 3 to 4 national level meme coins within a short period all follow the pattern of “launching with a surge — crashing to zero,” this game will not work. People who have lost money will not get on the bus again, and later countries will not dare to play this game.
For long-term success, you must find a sustainable economic model and gameplay. Otherwise, it will be like NFTs, which collapsed after a brief period of popularity.
Part 3: How Should Ordinary Users Play Meme Coins?
Q: Many meme coin investors say they “know it’s gambling, but they can’t resist the urge to rush in.” What do you think of this mentality?
Justin: Meme coins give people a sense of “grassroots counterattack,” which is similar to the mechanism that attracts people to casinos. However, the ups and downs of memes far exceed those of casinos, making even casinos seem a bit boring. Although most people lose money in the end, the stories of overnight riches of hundreds or thousands of times still make people believe that “the next person to turn over might be me.” Even if they lose, they will continue to rush in because the FOMO mentality is at play.
But rushing is rushing. Rushing strategically can help you survive longer. Real traders will carefully select targets with a higher probability of winning instead of going all in on a meme as soon as they see it. At the same time, setting clear profit-taking and stop-loss strategies will prevent you from being led by market sentiment.
Q: If I am an ordinary investor, how can I judge which meme coins have potential and which are purely for cutting leeks?
Justin: Due to time constraints, I rarely sit in front of the computer all the time, continuously paying attention to newly launched memes and participating in the internal market stage. Therefore, I prefer to choose medium-to-long-term memes with a life cycle of more than a few hours, which requires judging the meme’s narrative, chip structure, risk-reward ratio, and whether it has the potential for explosive social communication.
Token Distribution
You need to assess whether the project shows signs of manipulation. Typically, a “whale” wallet will show up in the top 100 addresses. Focus on digging deeper into the top 100 addresses, especially during periods of sideways trading, as this is when whales are most likely to accumulate tokens.
1. Market-making wallets: Focus on the number of trades. Their role is to cash out at high prices, distribute tokens, support prices, and gradually raise the bottom, while collecting tokens from retail investors who sell at a loss and transferring them to diamond hands and whales.
2. Trading volume is another good indicator for assessing whales. I usually use trading volume/market cap to evaluate. If this ratio stays above 1 for a long time, it suggests the whale still holds strong control over the market.
3. Address management: Every time I identify a whale-driven project, I save the addresses for future reference, similar to tracking smart money.
Risk-Reward Ratio
Based on the narrative, you need to set a target price for the token. For example, PNUT may represent a 1B-level narrative, while Trump represents a 100B-level narrative. By evaluating the current market cap and your target price, you can decide if the investment is worthwhile and how much capital to allocate. For instance, I recently considered a narrative like Dogshit2, and I think it can reach at least 100M in market cap, but it is currently at 2M, so I see a 50x upside and will choose to allocate some position.
Virality
You need to quickly assess who is following this token on Twitter and analyze their social influence network. Analyze which potential circles or KOLs might pay attention to it in the future. This requires having some accumulated understanding of the KOLs in the meme space. Tools like Katio or The1 can be used to analyze the influence of calling KOLs and help assess their viral potential.
Many meme experts have summarized some great investment advice, and I recommend checking out the MEME Playbook: From $0 to $10 Million co-authored by GMGN and on-chain experts. It contains a lot of in-depth analysis on how to select meme coin targets and corresponding take-profit and stop-loss strategies. This guide is a very practical reference.
How do you evaluate a meme project? Do you set “take-profit” or “stop-loss” rules?
Justin: I evaluate a meme project in several stages: information gathering → assessment → investment → take-profit/stop-loss.
l Information Gathering
Information sources should be as diverse as possible, while ensuring the quality of the information. I discuss with core blockchain players in their groups and follow high-quality KOLs on Twitter and Telegram. This ensures that I can quickly identify promising projects when they emerge. Additionally, I keep an eye on on-chain signals to avoid missing any potential targets.
l Quick Evaluation
After discovering a meme with potential, you need to make a quick judgment. Shared Twitter friends are a useful dimension for judgment. This requires having a well-curated Twitter following, focusing on high-quality KOLs and constantly accumulating good information sources. This is key to assessing the quality of a project. Next, I evaluate the narrative, token distribution, and risk-reward ratio, and then decide whether to invest and how much to allocate.
l Take-Profit and Stop-Loss Strategy
My strategy is to break even when the price doubles or triples, and then take profits in stages according to the ideal valuation. Meme coins change very quickly, so I don’t set rigid take-profit and stop-loss standards. Instead, I adjust in real-time based on market sentiment. For example, the unexpected deletion of a tweet by Argentina’s President Milei could not have been predicted. In such sudden events, you must stop-loss immediately without hesitation.
Justin’s 3 Survival Tips for Meme Coin Investors
Learn to judge the sentiment, spread, and persistence of a topic, and whether it has cyclical properties. Whether a meme can be popular depends not only on the narrative itself but also on whether its sentiment can continue to ferment.
If you are optimistic about a meme in terms of narrative, chip structure, and risk-reward ratio, you must dare to take a position and not blindly diversify your investment. Too dispersed investment methods may prevent you from capturing large returns, and eventually, you will end up “working hard for a long time, but earning only pocket money.”
Loss is part of success. Carefully analyze the reasons for each loss, deeply summarize, and apply it to the next investment. A real master is not someone who doesn’t lose money, but someone who can learn from every loss and continuously optimize their strategy.
Part 4: How Will the Meme Future Go?
Q: Do you think the hype of meme coins has reached its peak, or will there be even crazier ways to play in the future?
Justin: I think there will definitely be even crazier ways to play than Pump.fun in the future. Meme culture runs through the entire course of history. Before the emergence of blockchain, people were already good at playing with memes and culture, which is one of the indispensable pleasures in life. Blockchain has given memes a more efficient way of creation and dissemination, making it possible for an IP to quickly become popular, which is impossible to achieve with the efficiency of traditional cultural dissemination.
I believe that social interaction, news, and memes will be more closely integrated in the future. What would it be like if every piece of news and hot topic could correspond to a meme? Perhaps the future meme ecosystem will not only be about trading but will also become a consensus carrier for some news hotspots, allowing people to participate in a more intuitive way. This will be very interesting and may be the next big opportunity.
Q: If you are asked to predict the meme market in 2025, do you think it will continue to be popular?
Justin: Memes will not only continue to be popular in 2025 but will also run through the entire market for a long time. Memes have become a new generation of expression for news, hot topics, and culture, and they use coin prices to build consensus.
Hot topics will continue to emerge, trend culture will continue to evolve, and popular figures will continue to emerge, but the popular trends of each year are different. Therefore, if you want to seize opportunities in the meme field, you must have a sensitivity to global hot topics, including technology, culture, trends, politics, and other fields.
Each field will give birth to its own leading meme, and investors can choose the direction they are good at, give full play to their advantages, and dare to seize opportunities when suitable memes appear.
Q: Do you think it is possible for the meme ecosystem to become “valuable long-term assets”?
Justin: To understand the essence of memes, it is actually a kind of information with dissemination attributes. Whether a meme can become popular depends on whether the information it carries (culture, memes, news, popular figures, etc.) can gather enough attention and dissemination effect in a short period of time. This is similar to the hot search mechanism, except that memes are measured by trading volume and market value, while hot searches are judged by the number of posts and views.
Therefore, to judge whether a meme has long-term value, it depends on whether the information it carries has the ability of long-term dissemination or cyclical dissemination. For example:
Doge is mentioned by Musk from time to time, and it is also linked to the inefficiency of the US government, which has long-term discussion value, so Doge has become a long-term meme.
Memes like PNUT have extremely strong real-time explosive power, but it is difficult to predict whether there will be suitable scenarios to ignite it again in the future, so its long-term attributes are weak.
From the current point of view, only a few memes have long-term value, and most memes are still short-cycle hot spots and do not have the ability to explode again. The life cycle of these memes is like fashion trends. There are new popular trends every year, and old memes are gradually eliminated. Therefore, the meme ecosystem will continue to evolve, but only a very small number can truly become long-term assets.
