How to cultivate a top-tier trading mindset that stands strong across cycles?

How to cultivate a “divine” trader who can make a fortune on Spot, MEME, Airdrop, and NFT while also turning around huge losses?

At the age of 15, he used his New Year's money to buy 500 bitcoins, starting from scratch in his youth; he is a giant whale in the crypto circle, managing a fund worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and in 2025, he won 4.4 million tokens through the aster Airdrop; he is a master in poker, almost finishing as the runner-up in the World Series of Poker, integrating GTO game theory into trading; he has also experienced multiple liquidations and black swan events but is a seasoned trader who can quickly recover —— he is Wesley, a top player who has excelled in the crypto market, poker table, and gaming world.

In this episode of OKX “Dialogue with Traders”, @mia_okx has an in-depth conversation with Wesley, unpacking his growth journey to becoming the helm of a billion-level fund.

Here are the highlights of the full conversation, the video/text content has been organized for everyone, welcome to watch.

1. Childhood Enlightenment: From Yo-Yo Champion to Early Bitcoin Player, the Secret to Success Hidden in Interests

01 15 Year-Old's First Experience with Bitcoin: The Journey of Cryptocurrency Investment Started with Red Packet Money

Mia: I heard you got into cryptocurrency early, is that related to your childhood experiences?

Wesley: At that time, I was obsessed with yo-yo, and there weren't many people in the country researching the techniques. I learned yo-yo skills from abroad and brought them back to the country. In the end, I won first place in Chongqing and second place in Guangdong Province, and I also became the yo-yo coach for the actors of the TV series “Fire Power Youth King.” Back then, I practiced for several hours every day after school, and my middle finger developed bone hyperplasia. Looking back now, that perseverance in research was instilled in me since elementary school.

Mia: How did you first come into contact with Bitcoin?

Wesley: My family is relatively well-off, and my parents are very open about my financial management. Before I entered middle school, I could receive 10,000 to 30,000 yuan in red envelopes each year, and my dad never interfered with how I spent it, allowing me to manage my own funds. At that time, to earn some pocket money, I bought Amazon gift cards with Bitcoin on Paxful and then sold them at a high price on Taobao for arbitrage, which slowly got me into Bitcoin. Later, on Bitcoin China (founded by Li Qiyuan, brother of Litecoin founder Li Qiyue), I bought a couple of hundred Bitcoins for less than 100 yuan, marking my formal entry into the crypto space.

Mia: Have there been any pitfalls in early investments?

Wesley: Yes. When Bitcoin rose to three or four thousand RMB, I sold it to invest in stocks, and ended up catching the stock market crash in 2015, especially with LeEco, which directly hit the limit down and wiped out all the money I made from Bitcoin. Since then, I have never bought A-shares again and only focused on the crypto market. Looking back now, the trial and error of my youth was very important, as it made me understand the risk boundaries of different markets.

II. Trading and Deception: Strategies Originating from the Same Source, Profiting in Information Asymmetry **“**Long-term EV”

01 Entering the Bear Market with Texas Hold'em: After experiencing a loss of 2000 million, found Texas Hold'em to " relieve stress + strategy training ground**"

Mia: Why did you turn to the德扑圈 in 2022?

Wesley: At that time, when Bitcoin surged to a peak of about 69,000 USD, I was still increasing my position and going long, always feeling it could rise to 100,000 USD. However, shortly after, Bitcoin quickly dropped to over 50,000 USD, just within two or three days, and the drop was particularly fast. In the end, I had to cut my losses and exit, totaling a loss of about 20 million USD. Looking back now, it was mainly due to being too greedy and too high on the bull market. I had already made a decent profit and had exited, but I was infected by the FOMO sentiment in the market at that time and re-entered, which led to such a significant loss. At that time, I wanted to find something that could both relax me and be strategic. Texas Hold'em happened to fit that perfectly. Moreover, even if I lost tens of thousands every day, I wouldn't lose 20 million in a year; it's more controllable than trading losses, and it allowed me to temporarily forget the pressure of the bear market. This characteristic of having a “clear risk boundary” helped me slowly come out of the anxiety of the bear market, and I even started to ponder trading strategies from Texas Hold'em.

Mia: Can the strategies of Texas Hold'em be applied to trading?

Wesley: Absolutely. Texas Hold'em and trading are both games of information asymmetry, unlike chess and Go where information is transparent. The core concept is GTO (Game Theory Optimal) theory, which is not about winning through a single decision, but rather about distributing actions based on probabilities, aiming for long-term positive EV (expected value). For example, in Texas Hold'em, you might have a 10% probability of raising and a 20% probability of folding; the same applies in trading, where you don't stubbornly stick to one direction, but rather layout based on probabilities to ensure long-term profitability.

Mia: What efforts did you put in to go from a beginner in Texas Hold'em to almost winning the runner-up in the World Series of Poker (WSP)?

Wesley: At first, I was just playing around on a TV show because of my flamboyant personality; I like to show off my skills at the poker table, and the production team found it interesting, so they often invited me. But when I really wanted to play well, I hired one of the best Chinese players as my coach and kept learning, because learning poker is also a …

It's a very tedious process, just like solving math problems; you have to remember a lot of things and memorize a lot.

3. Black Swan Response: After a liquidation of 5 million USD, quickly recover with a volatility strategy

Mia: What was your personal experience during the black swan event on October 11th? Can you elaborate on the process of the liquidation?

Wesley: At that time, I thought the US government would announce the ETF results for the three coins, Litecoin, Solana, and Dogecoin, and I was sure it would pass, so I kept going long. As a result, on that day, Dogecoin dropped by 70%, and Litecoin fell from 130 to a low of 51, and I got liquidated at the price of 51. All accounts combined, I lost over 5 million dollars, not including the losses from spot trading. Later, I found out that a certain exchange's system crashed, the market makers didn't place orders, and liquidity vanished in an instant, causing positions that wouldn't have been liquidated to be liquidated.

Mia: After losing so much money, how did you quickly adjust your mindset to recover?

Wesley: Later, a certain exchange compensated for the losses, but they didn't publicly disclose what the problem was. I think it's meaningless to dwell on past losses, as it can affect future judgments; one must look forward. I pulled out the book “Cycles,” and there was a sentence that left a deep impression on me, which is that both people and things have their cycles. We cannot always remain at the peak, so after falling from the peak, how to stabilize your mindset and then strive for another new high is a very important matter.

The direct reason for this market crash is the failure of X, along with some catalysts such as the sharp decline in US stocks, compounded by Trump's very aggressive rhetoric on the trade war.

From the perspective of market long and short games, the bulls have accumulated too much, including bulls like us who are long on ecological coins, suddenly clearing all our leverage. This crash requires a lot of momentum, and we were that momentum for this crash. Now that the momentum is gone, this market will end the trend of crashing and turn into a consolidation. So after the crash, I have been trading based on consolidation. When approaching the bottom, I go long. Then when it rebounds close to the previous pressure level, I go short. I made several trades, and the results were quite good.

Mia: Will you review after a loss? How will you adjust your trading strategy?

Wesley: There will definitely be a review. For example, during the time I lost 20 million, the review revealed that it was due to my greed, being influenced by FOMO emotions, and the issue of path dependence; during the black swan event, I realized the risks of exchanges and the importance of liquidity in extreme market conditions. In terms of adjusting strategies, I now focus on spot trading, using very little leverage. In the past, I would use ten times leverage, but now I only add 0.5 times or one time at most to avoid liquidation risks. Additionally, I will adjust based on market conditions; for example, after the black swan event, I judged it to be a consolidation period, so I adopted a consolidation strategy instead of stubbornly holding onto the trend.

4. Trading Philosophy: Trend is King, Capital Management is Priority, Reject Path Dependence

Mia: What is the core logic of trend trading, which you are best at? How do you judge trends and seize opportunities in practice?

Wesley: I determine trends mainly by looking at three dimensions: macro fundamentals, candlestick structure, and mindset. First is the macro cycle, for example, whether we are currently in a rate hike cycle or a downgrade cycle. Second is the candlestick, because the higher the level you are trading, the simpler the candlestick you observe, which increases your winning rate. The third point is having a good mindset, because I have made profits and incurred losses, so when facing significant unrealized gains and losses, I can hold on. I won't constantly swing trade, for example, some people want to short when the price rises and go long when it falls. But I can hold on quite well. These three points are my principles for trading.

Mia: You said “capital management comes first”, how can we do capital management well? What is the difference in position allocation between mainstream coins and MEME coins?

Wesley: I manage funds, and the core principle is “mostly focused on spot, with a small amount of leverage.” Even if the leverage blows up, it won't cause too much damage to me. In the past, I would use ten times leverage, but now even adding a little over zero point something times is already the limit; I won't be as aggressive as before.

When selecting targets, large funds generally choose the top ten or top fifteen cryptocurrencies for trend trading, preferably those that are on ETFs, as they have higher certainty; for MEME coins, the most important factors are the theme and narrative, and then using Bubblemaps to check the degree of chip dispersion, as well as which leading coins to follow. However, I only play MEME coins with a small position, for example, I only bought 150,000 USD of a certain coin at 4 previously, which could have returned 5 million USD at its peak, but I didn't hold on and took the profit.

Mia: You have gone through several rounds of bull and bear markets, how do you achieve “no path dependence”? For example, why can't the strategies that worked well in the last round be copied in this round?

Wesley: Path dependence is terrifying in the long run. For example, if you made money through ICOs in 2017, continuing to do ICOs in 2018 would certainly lead to losses; the rolling strategy in the last bull market was particularly effective, for instance, rolling from when Bitcoin broke 20,000 all the way to 60,000, but this round doesn’t work because the market is very sticky, with many corrections, and it could even directly reverse, making rolling positions prone to liquidation. The market is constantly changing, iterating faster and faster; if you don't learn, you'll fall behind. Now, I pay more attention to retail voices, like entering communities and looking at KOL opinions on Twitter, combining them with my own experiences to judge, and I won’t cling to old strategies. For example, many people are still using the “diamond hands” approach this time, but it results in a roller coaster ride because they fail to see that the market structure is different from before.

Mia: If you are studying computer science, have you considered doing quantitative trading on your own? Because isn't quantitative trading more stable with lower drawdowns?

Wesley: I think this has little to do with studying computer science, because I've been in the crypto space for over a decade, and many who do quantitative trading end up losing everything. This time (October 11th black swan), many market makers lost everything because of the exchange's downtime. You might maintain a profit of several tens of percent for a year, and then a single downtime or a black swan event can wipe you out completely. I believe quantitative trading can earn slowly, but it can't withstand a black swan event. Howard Marks once said that in investing, risk is proportional to return; truly high-return opportunities should have low risk, while high-risk opportunities are not good because they can easily lead to losses. Moreover, now more professional institutions are getting involved in quantitative trading. If I were to do quantitative trading, I would rather give my money to some professional institutions; they would do it better than I can. Doing it myself is not where my strengths lie. I have always had a bit of bias against quantitative trading, mainly because I've seen too many quantitative funds lose everything, which has led to my strong prejudice against it.

V. MEME Coin Trading: Practical Cases and Selection Criteria

Mia: Since your return to crypto trading in this bull market, you've had quite an impressive performance in trading MEME coins. When did you start getting into and playing with MEME coins?

Wesley: I started this round with dog wif hat (WIF). Since I'm in the US, I got familiar with the Western crowd that was playing Solana from the beginning, so I've bought all sorts of Meme coins and tried everything. This includes Pepe, and also the new dog adopted by the owner of the previous dog from dogecoin, called Neiro. I also bought this Meme-related asset early on.

Mia: Do you have any memorable specific experiences in trading Meme coins?

Wesley: Yes, for example, “4”, I bought 1% when its market cap was 15 million USD, but I didn't hold on to it, so I missed out on about 4 million USD in profits. At that time, I bought it using OKX's DEX feature, and now my position is worth about 2 million USD, at its peak it was worth 5 million USD.

There is also the Azuki NFT, which I operated publicly. In the last bear market, I publicly sold a wave of it, and this transaction earned me about 5 million USD, which can be seen on-chain. At that time, I was the 13th largest holder of Azuki globally, because Azuki has a holding ranking. My address was quite famous due to the profile picture, which was almost worth 1 million USD at that time. I kept it as a collection and didn't sell it, selling off some other rare ones, the floor-priced ones, including some small beans (Azuki-related derivative NFTs). Now I still keep a few very rare Azuki profile pictures, which are also worth almost 1 million USD. It counts as a good trade where I bottomed out and successfully escaped the peak in the last bear market.

Mia: How did you learn the trading logic of MEME coins, and how do you filter the MEME coin targets?

Wesley: In fact, it’s about engaging more, listening to everyone’s opinions, and understanding without prejudice. First, you need to be grounded and integrate into the retail investor community. I often join many groups, and I also have my own community where I listen to what everyone thinks about different MEME coins; I also check the shares from various KOLs I like on Twitter, who also discuss the dynamics of MEME coins. Simply put, MEME coins are about the issue of “consensus”; their value essentially depends on what people believe they are worth. So I first listen to what everyone’s “narrative” about this MEME coin is, and then combine it with my own trading experience to assess whether this narrative can resonate with me — this is actually a relatively subjective judgment. If this narrative resonates with me, I will consider buying.

Mia: You always manage to seize the opportunity of new MEME coins in a timely manner. What is the key to maintaining your sharpness?

Wesley: On one hand, there are resources around me. For example, some community-oriented projects are recommended by friends. Like aster, at that time, a junior of mine, who was an important staff member in aster, encouraged me to support it, so I invested less than 30 million USD. They were offering a 20% annualized return, and I didn't even consider how much Airdrop I could get. I didn't expect the project to take off completely later, and in the end, I also received Airdrop for free, selling for 5 million USD. It can be considered luck, and perhaps an unexpected gain from helping others. On the other hand, I do not reject new things, whether it's Meme coins or NFTs. As long as it's new and has community enthusiasm, I will actively learn about it and won't dismiss it right away. Combining this with the information gathering mentioned earlier, I can seize opportunities in a timely manner.

6. Advice for Beginners: Bitcoin is the preferred choice for long-term allocation; don't be obsessed with getting rich quickly.

Mia: If a beginner has only 5000U or even less in funds and wants to allocate assets, what specific advice would you give?

Wesley: If it's for long-term asset allocation, I would only recommend buying Bitcoin. I believe that in our lifetime, we will definitely see Bitcoin rise to 1 million USD. No matter when you buy, holding it long-term is reliable, and there's no need to worry about short-term fluctuations; this is the most stable way. There's no need to touch those unknown altcoins, the risks are too high.

Mia: If a newbie wants to get rich quickly, like you did starting from scratch in your teenage years, what would you advise them?

Wesley: First of all, I have to say that I didn't get rich quickly. I benefited from the early cryptocurrency market and, combined with long-term accumulation, I have reached my current position. The benefits in the crypto world are almost gone now. It's not like before when you could easily make money just by buying any altcoin. If you want to make money, you have to first ask yourself, “What are your advantages?” Why can you make more money than others? Before you figure this out, don't rush in blindly. First, learn and wait for a good opportunity; be cautious to survive. Many newcomers get a bit of profit at the start and become overconfident, using leverage and making random moves, and in the end, they lose everything. It's better to first learn how not to lose.

Mia: Besides trading skills, what else do you think beginners should pay attention to? For example, mindset and aspects of life.

Wesley: The most important thing is not to be too obsessed with getting rich quickly; trading is just a part of life. Right now, health and safety are the most important to me. I have security around the clock, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on safety. No matter how much money you have, it’s useless without health and safety. Additionally, it's important to maintain a learning mindset; the crypto space evolves too quickly, and if you don't learn, you'll fall behind. I'm still reading and communicating with other traders; even though I manage a billion-dollar fund, I don't dare to stop learning.

7. Book Recommendations and Future Plans: Using Influence to Give Voice to the Chinese Community

Mia: You often recommend the book “Cycles”. Which viewpoints in this book have influenced you the most? Besides trading books, what other books do you like to read? Wesley: The core of “Cycles” discusses that “everything has cycles”—whether it’s the market, stocks, or people, nothing can remain at its peak forever. After a decline, how to stabilize your mindset and strive for new highs is particularly important for trading. Howard Marks wrote this book, summarizing his decades of memos for investors; even Buffett loves to read his memos, which are particularly solid and worth revisiting. Besides trading books, I enjoy reading novels, such as “Snowy Knife's Journey” and “The Strange Tale of the Immortal”—these novels have now been adapted into TV dramas, and the protagonists possess a rebellious spirit, emphasizing the unity of knowledge and action, and doing the right things, which has a significant impact on my character.

Mia: Are you still active on the front lines of crypto? What are your plans for the future?

Wesley: I want to accumulate more influence now. Not for money, but because I feel that influence is too important in this era; it can solve many issues that money alone cannot. More importantly, I want to do something for Chinese and Chinese Americans to elevate our status in the United States. In the U.S., there are too few Chinese willing to speak up; everyone is used to making money quietly, but in reality, we need someone to stand up for our rights. For example, if there’s an opportunity in the future, I would like to try being a congressman, using influence to do something tangible like Musk and Trump. Even if there are risks, doing the right thing is worthwhile.

Disclaimer

This article is for reference only. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the position of OKX. This article does not intend to provide (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of such information. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins and NFTs) involves high risk and may be subject to significant volatility. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and historical returns are not indicative of future performance. OKX is not responsible for any potential losses. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is appropriate for you based on your financial situation. Please consult your legal/tax/investment professionals regarding your specific circumstances. Not all products and services are available in all regions, and certain products and services may be restricted or unavailable in some regions. You are responsible for understanding and complying with the applicable laws and regulations in your jurisdiction.