Dialogue with the former Binance listing team manager: After reviewing 2,000 projects, the real cryptocurrency world from the perspective of a power player

Organizer: Deep Tide TechFlow

Guest: Chase, former listing manager at Binance

Podcast Source: Class Representative Stand Up

Original Title: Is Bitcoin Manipulated? Former Exchange Executive Reveals How Whales "Proclaim Sovereignty" to the World

Release Date: February 10, 2026

Guest Identity: Chase, former listing manager at Binance. During his tenure, he handled approximately 1,000-2,000 projects and was directly responsible for the token issuance (Launch) of about 100 projects, with data quality that is extremely high, representing a top-tier perspective in the industry.

Core Understanding: He believes that the cryptocurrency space (especially the exchange environment) is a "no-acting" financial battlefield. Unlike the stock market, which still wears the guise of financial reports, this space is filled with liquidity games and market maker manipulation. He observed that Bitcoin's candlestick charts can be perfectly crafted into "artificial patterns" by whales to proclaim sovereignty. In this market, information, traffic, attention, and even insider information itself are assets that can be priced as long as there is liquidity.

Highlights of Key Insights

Macroeconomics and Cryptocurrency Valuation Logic

• The Truth Behind the Bull Market in U.S. Stocks: Since the dot-com bubble, the S&P 500 has been in a long-term bull market, but when compared to gold, this may not be the case. The core reason for this phenomenon is the continuous expansion of money supply.

• Support for Asset Prices: Newly created money must find asset carriers. The growth of goods and services (GDP) cannot keep up with the speed of money issuance and credit growth; excess money must flow into new asset classes, leading to bubbles. Cryptocurrencies (Crypto), due to their low-cost issuance and the lack of centralized verification, have become excellent containers for global overflow liquidity.

• Cryptocurrency Valuation System: Unlike traditional finance, which looks at cash flow, the short-term performance of cryptocurrency assets is determined by three factors:

1. Liquidity

2. Traffic/Attention

3. Tokenomics

Market Manipulation and Whale Mentality

• Can Bitcoin be Manipulated?: Yes. Chase observed that Bitcoin rose for seven consecutive days in a week with almost the same amplitude and trading volume, followed by a sharp drop. This is not natural fluctuation but rather a signal released by large capital groups (whales/market makers) to the market—"I control the rhythm; those who understand will follow, and those who don’t will be eaten."

• Everything Can Be Priced: In the Crypto world, information, traffic, and even insider information (like Polymarket prediction markets) can be assetized. When most people form a "consensus," it is often the moment for reverse harvesting.

• A No-Acting Market: Exchanges like Binance vividly demonstrate what naked trading looks like. There are value investors, but more importantly, there are market makers who see through liquidity and short-term interests; this is a "no acting" financial battlefield.

1. Frontier Trends: The Combination of AI Agents and Crypto

• The Measurement Dilemma of AI: The economic volume generated by AI agents will exceed that of humans in the future, but the existing GDP system cannot measure the micro-transactions of AI (API calls, data exchanges).

• Crypto as Infrastructure: Crypto is a financial infrastructure naturally suited for AI. It can provide precise measurement and settlement for every tiny transaction without the cumbersome trust processes of the banking system. Crypto may be designed for AI use, rather than for humans.

Industry Insider Information and Wealth Opportunities

• The Windfall of Stablecoins: Tron hosts a large amount of USDT. Tether (the issuer of USDT) made a profit of about $15 billion in one year, exceeding the total losses of OpenAI and Anthropic. This is a risk-free arbitrage model relying on the interest rate spread of U.S. Treasury bonds, making it the industry's true "cash cow."

• Capital Equality: The biggest change in production relations brought by Crypto is "capital equality." No matter who you are, as long as you meet the standards, your funds can earn equal returns (like DeFi yields), breaking the traditional banks' differential treatment of retail and high-net-worth clients.

• Advice for Practitioners:

◦ On Getting Rich: There are indeed "rich bonuses" in this industry; ordinary people can earn more than in traditional manufacturing by being diligent (like claiming airdrops), but ultimately, the big money still flows to the "Yuan Ying monks" (top players) or gets redistributed.

◦ Advice for Newcomers: First, understand two things—Bitcoin (as an asset allocation) and stablecoins (as a payment revolution). Don’t just focus on speculation; see the opportunities brought by the payment system revolution.

◦ 2026 Prediction: Bitcoin will rise, but possibly in ways you do not expect (through pricing all information and liquidity games).

Opening and Guest Introduction: The Power of Binance's Listing Manager

Class Representative: Hello everyone, welcome Chase, a very mysterious figure in the cryptocurrency space, to our program. Chase, please introduce yourself.

Chase: Hello everyone, I was once a powerful figure, but now I have fallen into obscurity, haha. I’m leaving to pursue my dreams and have given up a lot of power. I’m Chase, as the class representative mentioned, my most recent job was as a Listing Manager at Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the crypto space. This job mainly involved helping founders mint their tokens. During my time at Binance, we achieved annual trading volumes comparable to Nasdaq, so the scale is significant.

Class Representative: Let me interpret your work for everyone. These people issue a coin, but if they want to trade it on Binance, which has trading volumes comparable to Nasdaq, it has to go through your team. My understanding is that your position is somewhat similar to that of a securities regulator deciding whether a company can go public. So all the founders are very…

Chase: There are similar functions, but legally it cannot be defined that way.

Class Representative: Okay, please continue. How big is your team, and what role do you play in it?

Chase: Our team has about a dozen people. My official title is Listing Building Manager. We had four people, and now there are even fewer. Four of us could go out and truly approach and communicate with everyone, clarify their doubts, guide them, and tell them how things should be done, A, B, C, D, and so on.

Class Representative: Wow, I think your background provides several important pieces of information. First, you must have seen many projects; you are likely one of the people who have seen the most Crypto projects in the world because that’s your job. And since you truly have power, we won’t shy away from it, especially since you are about to leave, so there’s no conflict of interest. Therefore, those founders value you highly, and the core resources and information you can obtain are very firsthand and authentic. You have also developed your judgment. Thirdly, one of your jobs is to communicate with the industry, so you must have formed your own views or insights. I think these aspects give you a unique position. What do you think you can share with everyone today?

Chase: I think the most I can share with everyone is what the entire model looks like after I have input so much data. Moreover, I believe my data is of relatively high quality, so it should not be garbage. I can honestly share with everyone the highest quality data. From the time I joined the company until last year, I spent about two and a half years looking at roughly 1,000 to 2,000 projects. Last year, about 100 of the projects I supported successfully launched their tokens.

Class Representative: Tell us what this number represents, whether it’s looking at projects or launching them.

Chase: You can understand looking at projects as being similar to how VCs look at projects. You have to look at the deck, the team, talk to them, call them, and make some judgments; that’s the basics. I think a VC would look at about 200 projects a year, which is quite impressive. You have to keep communicating with the founders. But in my two years, I looked at over 1,000 projects, and last year alone, I launched about 100. What does 100 mean? When I first joined Binance, they launched only about 20 projects a year. The entire company launched only about 20 projects a year. Then in the second year, it was about 50 or 60, and by the third year, in 2025, I launched 100 alone in one year. And then the bull market came. How many total were launched? It must be around 250 or 300.

Class Representative: Anyway, you accounted for almost half of it.

Chase: One-third. No, no, about one-third. Because there are only four of us in total. The success rate of screening is about 5% to 10%.

The Worldview of Crypto: The Tertiary Industry and AI Infrastructure

Chase: I want you to help everyone interpret this world. Many people may not understand how to perceive the Crypto world. First, you can think of it as a virtual world. This world has its own set of economic circulation mechanisms. If you think of it as a country, then it needs the U.S. dollar as liquidity support. However, its output, its exports, are its services. It only has services, only the tertiary industry. What is its primary industry? What it needs is computing power and electricity.

Class Representative: How should this be understood? What does it mean that the output is the tertiary industry? Because we often say, can we use Bitcoin to buy pizza, right? Isn’t that something else?

Chase: The reason I say it’s the tertiary industry is that although Bitcoin has a large market share, 50% to 60%, it is not the core of this industry. We can talk about where bubbles can be blown; it can serve as a store of value, but it cannot provide many services. A store of value is essentially what we call liquidity support. Why is it called the tertiary industry? For example, after Ethereum emerged, many smart contracts enabled functions like DeFi, which can significantly impact the traditional financial industry. I remember a few weeks ago, someone mentioned that in the next two years, almost all mainstream institutions on Wall Street will go on-chain.

Class Representative: Regarding DeFi, we previously invited Richard Youzhong (founder of Huma Finance) to our channel to discuss his project. Essentially, it helps companies already engaged in trade reduce friction in finance, whether it’s exchanging currency or lending, improving their efficiency. It’s a clear point of service bringing value to traditional or non-Crypto.

Chase: Right.

Class Representative: Could you list some of the main points in your view?

Chase: What you just mentioned is the industry’s external output of services and value, which is not a problem. But besides that, this industry has some very special aspects. For example, Flash loans. Most people may not have heard of it. What does it mean? For example, if you go to a bank to borrow money, you either need collateral or a very high credit score; you must have something to allow the bank to lend you. The ability of a flash loan is that you can complete borrowing and receiving funds without any collateral, and the bank has no risk at the same time. Almost all Crypto related to payments can enable this.

Chase: The most important thing, and what I might write a paper on soon, is related to AI. Let’s say five years from now, if AI continues to develop according to our current scaling law, the number of AI agents will definitely exceed the human population, right? Based on this assumption, how do you measure the economic behavior generated between AI agents? You call its API, fine, you are currently in a subscription model. But many times, I may only need a lot of long-tail data, such as data that only you have or only I have; how do you settle after one call? The amount of data obtained is very small, and the existing banking system cannot help settle it. All these economic behaviors need to be measured first and must be trusted by everyone to succeed. This is also where Crypto can enable or collaborate with AI. This is why many people in the circle think that Crypto itself may not be designed for human use; it may be designed for AI use in the future.

Class Representative: When interviewing Youzhong, he also mentioned something I still remember: he believes AI is productivity, while Crypto is the production relationship.

Chase: Actually, Crypto also has productivity and production relationships. But what really can change the production relationship in Crypto is the ideology of capital equality. If you think about it, if you live in the mainland and are used to Alipay and Yu'ebao, it’s very natural for your money to be there and earn interest automatically. But in North America or Europe, you may have to go to a bank, which has thresholds, and the interest rates they give you are very low. But Crypto completely equalizes the world. Money is just money; I don’t care whose money it is; as long as you deposit it and meet my standards, you can get the same returns.

Macroeconomic Perspective: U.S. Stocks, Gold, and Monetary Illusion

Class Representative: We just mentioned that payment itself is a large system, and Crypto can provide a lot of value in it. Changing the production relationship is another value. Are there any other significant value points in your view regarding Crypto?

Chase: Speaking more realistically, it can help all countries with excessive liquidity carry more liquidity without affecting inflation.

Class Representative: I understand it as a store of value. Do you think there is a significant difference between this and gold?

Chase: You asked a very good question. In the link I shared with you, there is a chart. What does this chart show? First, let me ask you a question: do you think U.S. stocks have been in a bear or bull market since the dot-com bubble?

Class Representative: It’s a bull market.

Chase: Right, if you look at the S&P 500, it’s a bull market. But for gold, it’s a bear market. The chart I showed you illustrates this point.

Class Representative: Right. Interesting. It suggests that the money you printed has driven the growth of the S&P 500, but it still hasn’t exceeded the growth rate of gold in terms of inflation resistance. Wow. So the S&P is outperforming gold…

Chase: This is a very famous research piece by Lyn Alden; I can share the link with you later.

Class Representative: Interesting, interesting, interesting. This has significantly changed my understanding of investing. Previously, I was misled by the erroneous investment theories taught in economics, thinking that stock prices are discounted future earnings. That makes some sense, but I later realized that everyone keeps saying the U.S. stock market is a bubble waiting to burst, and it should drop every ten years, but it hasn’t happened. Why? I thought about it and realized that it’s because there’s just so much money printed now that it has to go somewhere.

Chase: Yes, exactly. You think about our growth in goods and services, which is about 5% annually, right? Your money issuance and credit growth far exceed this speed. Therefore, the excess money must find new services or assets to price. Why are there new assets to price? Because in the Crypto space, it can continuously issue assets at a very low cost. Moreover, you don’t need to verify it through a central institution. As long as everyone believes that this asset has value, new liquidity will flow in to support this liquidity.

Class Representative: You just need to verify it yourself.

Chase: Yes, you just need to make your own judgment.

Class Representative: Not just you! You!

Chase: Oh, me personally? No, no, I’m just an employee, just an employee.

Pricing Everything: Polymarket and Information Assetization

Chase: A recently popular project called Polymarket, I believe you’ve heard of it.

Class Representative: I don’t know much about it; could you explain it to everyone? I’ve heard of it but never looked into it because it sounded like a scam to me.

Chase: OK, it first gained popularity during the Trump election year. Basically, it’s a prediction market; it claims to be a prediction market, but it’s actually a binary option. It knows the election results a few hours in advance. Its logic is what? It believes that there are always people in the world who have inside information about something.

Class Representative: I agree.

Chase: Then this inside information should be priced; it should be valued.

Class Representative: Right.

Chase: This is a market for pricing it.

Class Representative: Okay, it’s not a scam. That makes sense. Haha, you convinced me with one sentence.

Chase: Hahaha. This is exactly what happened. I have a good relationship with the founder; we often have meals and drinks together. Now you can understand that in the context of globalization, Crypto is a very strong sector that maintains globalization. And this sector puts all information on the same network, where all information can be priced. Information can become an asset, traffic can become an asset, and any transaction or idea can become an asset. As long as this asset has liquidity, it can be supported.

Measurement and the Ineffectiveness of GDP in the AI Economy

Chase: Just like I mentioned earlier, the reason I want to write this AI paper is that I believe the GDP or economic volume generated by agents in the future will definitely exceed that of humans. At that time, without a measurement, you cannot achieve it without a certain infrastructure. The existing infrastructure is Crypto. However, in economics or academia, there is no index that says what this agent looks like. Currently, we can only estimate what AI might look like in the future through Google’s reports, OpenAI’s financing data, and Oracle’s data center construction costs.

Class Representative: I understand.

Chase: If you think from first principles, every agent and every transaction should be measured, and it should be very precise.

Class Representative: Let me explain to my audience. My understanding is that there are two core issues. The first is how valuable AI is; whether AI is worth money is very hard to price. Because if we only look at OpenAI’s revenue now, it’s not much, tens of billions, right? But Dai Yusen proposed an idea that I once surveyed at an event: if I buy out your future usage rights for ChatGPT, you can’t use ChatGPT or any new AI services anymore; how much would you be willing to pay to be bought out? I asked the audience, and when I reached $100,000, only one person raised their hand. With 100 people, only one raised their hand. When I reached $1 million, many still didn’t raise their hands. $1 million, so the value of this thing is enormous, but I can’t measure it. The second is how much productivity AI generates; GDP is also very hard to measure.

Chase: Yes, GDP is particularly flawed. G is gross, right? But it’s not gross. Every time you make an API call, you can measure it precisely. Secondly, it’s domestic. AI is not domestic; it’s a global thing. Thirdly, it’s not a product; it’s not a formed product; it’s many intermediate states. So every word in GDP is wrong. If you use this to measure AI, that’s why we need a new index, at least a micro-measurement. And on top of that, it’s also important to have a macro index. We are already writing some frameworks.

Class Representative: What I mean is that the link between macro and micro can write a framework, but whether OpenAI allows you to measure is another matter.

Chase: Yes, you are right. It may be that when the number of agents develops to a certain extent, and when one or two killer apps come out, you may not need OpenAI to manage your data 100% or care about your data, collecting your data. For example, you can locally host your own agent. Then, when your agent helps you with complex tasks, you rely on cloud agents. Right? When you have daily tasks, you can do them at home. I have two MacBooks, one MacBook and one Mac mini; I can connect them to run a 31B model at home, and my data is all local, which is very useful.

Bitcoin 2026 and Market Manipulation: "No Acting" Whales

Class Representative: Well, we’ve returned to value creation. Let’s quickly talk about money, haha. Let’s discuss the question everyone is most concerned about: will Bitcoin rise or fall in 2026? Make a prediction.

Chase: It will rise. It will definitely rise to an all-time high. But in what way? It will probably be in a way you never expected.

Class Representative: Why?

Chase: Returning to my previous topic, all information can be priced. Now, in the cryptocurrency space, anyone can be priced in this network. When everyone forms a consensus, your consensus will be priced, and there will be people who go against that consensus to cash out. OK, this might be a bit deep. If you’ve ever been a market maker or know about quantitative trading, you’ll find that it’s always a big fish eating a small fish. However, when a minority eats a majority, when the majority forms a large consensus, it is highly likely to become a target. Others will price you as that target.

Class Representative: So when everyone thinks this thing is going to drop, it actually rises. It won’t drop. Why? Because when you know it’s going to drop, you will be convinced and expect it to drop; you have already been socially engineered. I’m talking about the general public, not you personally. But this feeling isn’t anything new; it’s just the logic of market manipulation in the stock market.

Chase: Right.

Class Representative: Can anyone manipulate Bitcoin? Is it that big? Or is it really that big?

Chase: Bitcoin’s market cap is now around two or three trillion U.S. dollars, so the scale is not small. It’s about one-tenth of gold. Last year, around February and April, there was a week when Bitcoin’s candlestick chart, if you looked at the daily chart, rose continuously for seven days with the same amplitude and volume, then suddenly dropped. What does this mean? Generally, this pattern appears when there is a strong whale controlling the entire chip situation. In other words, someone or a group wanted to announce to the world, "Guys, I have already controlled this thing; it’s that simple."

Class Representative: OK, not only did they control it, but they also directly told everyone; they sent a clear signal.

Chase: Right. What do they hope for? They hope you join; they hope those who understand will join them and eat those who don’t understand.

Class Representative: I need to quickly check what day that was; I’ll find it for you.

Chase: I’ll find it for you; I’ll rely on you, haha. This industry is very interesting.

Class Representative: Who is this person?

Chase: There’s no specific person; you’ll never know who it is. There are many market makers in this space, and many traditional financial market makers overlap with Crypto market makers. These market makers don’t look at fundamentals; they only look at market liquidity and the signals they believe in. Once these signals come out, they will trigger. The trading methods I just described belong to what? Either the market liquidity at that time is controlled by these few people with the same algorithms, and everyone confirms each other, "OK guys, we’re all in this together," or they believe that other people with chips or money won’t participate in my game during that time. About a year ago, I’ll find the date for you.

Class Representative: Good, I’ll find the screenshot for you. Continue. Bitcoin has shown a trend that insiders know about, and experts are manipulating the market. If that’s the case, then as you said, they can cut and will do so. As long as everyone understands, that’s enough.

Valuation System: Liquidity, Attention, and Chip Structure

Class Representative: Next, you just mentioned Bitcoin, which aligns with my understanding: Bitcoin serves as a store of value in the blockchain, essentially like trading based on gold, and it has that vault feeling. To truly make big money or lose big money here, it’s actually all about things outside of Bitcoin. The value of gold, no matter how it rises or falls, is relatively stable. Even if it rises to an all-time high, it may only be a 30-40% increase compared to now. Besides leveraging for trading, what else do you see?

Chase: This may return to some of your previous learnings in traditional economics. First is valuation-driven, right? Second is liquidity, or driven by true fundamentals. The valuation system in the cryptocurrency space is different from traditional finance. It mainly consists of three parts: one is liquidity, one is traffic, which is attention, and the last is the entire chip structure, which we call Tokenomics. These three components almost determine what the asset will look like in the short to medium term. No one looks at the long term; no one looks at the long term.

Class Representative: How short is the short to medium term?

Chase: Generally, it’s about 7 days to 3 months; you can almost see the general direction of an asset. However, for example, the projects Richard is working on are actually very good projects, but their token issuance didn’t go particularly well because they didn’t have experience before. But in the long run, this project is definitely worth paying attention to. For instance, they recently launched a new feature called Defensive Loopring, which indirectly helps you leverage assets they consider very low risk without causing you losses, almost at the smart contract level. The result is that you can achieve an annualized return of about 16-17%. This is very considerable, and there’s not much upper limit on the capital volume; you can put in a few million and just let it be.

Chase: This is a good case illustrating why their token price hasn’t risen. The underlying has been done so well; what causes the price of the token or the gap in between? Once your token, this asset, circulates, to be honest, first, you can’t control it anymore; it’s all market behavior.

Class Representative: Yes.

Chase: However, because the market participants pricing this market are either retail investors who don’t understand or market makers who have very strong capital but don’t care about value; they only care about short-term profit. This leads to everyone focusing on short-term gains without long-term considerations. So when to enter the market? Especially for you or traditional finance practitioners or even in my current situation, wanting to make long-term investments is usually after the first wave is over, when everyone realizes it still has value, and its token is no longer influenced by liquidity and attention; that’s when the valuation is relatively fair. For example, if you look at Richard’s project Huma, its current valuation is probably around $300 million. But in my view, it’s worth about $2 billion without a doubt; it’s just waiting for the wind. Basically, the speculation has already finished.

Class Representative: Right.

Chase: Exactly, the speculative wave has already played out.

Class Representative: I think looking at Crypto trading, especially on exchanges like Binance, vividly reflects the stock market's aspects of value, trading, and speculation or market manipulation, making it very hard to see clearly. But in Crypto, it’s particularly obvious and clear.

Chase: So it’s vividly displayed; everyone is not acting; everyone is not acting.

Class Representative: Right. No acting.

Chase: No acting. Because it hasn’t been defined as a security yet, the regulations governing it are minimal. Many people start to do bad things; it’s hard to avoid.

Industry Figures: Sun Yuchen, Tether, and the Truth of Windfall Profits

Class Representative: Speaking of this, let’s introduce a person who doesn’t act at all. Or rather, he might be all acting; I’ve recently been watching "A Mortal's Journey to Immortality," and the character Nanlong Hou is someone who acts himself, a person with deep schemes. Sun Ge, Sun Yuchen, you should know quite a bit about his story. I think he’s a great case to discuss the character portraits in this space and their underlying motives. It’s actually quite mysterious; he’s everywhere, so it’s hard to tell if he’s really rich or just pretending to be rich. How do you view this? Share some insider information.

Chase: Insider information… Let’s first talk about Nanlong Hou; after all, he is a descendant of Cang Kun Shang Ren, right? He must be hiding something. In the world of cultivating immortality in the environment created by Wang Yu (the author of "A Mortal's Journey to Immortality"), it’s all about scheming; you can’t avoid that; it’s his protection. Even so, he still got played, right? So it’s hard to say. As for Sun Ge, I don’t have personal interactions with him, so I can’t comment much. But he is indeed wealthy; this is well-known in the industry. It’s a certainty for insiders, while it may be a question mark for outsiders.

Class Representative: What do insiders know? It should also be public information, right? He has public addresses?

Chase: Yes, there’s a public chain called Tron, right? You know USDT; actually, the largest parking space for USDT is on Tron. This means Tron and USDT have a symbiotic relationship, at least in the past. Moreover, you think about how much USDT has printed; I forgot if it’s 60% or what; I can check the real data. Tron currently has about $4.7 billion in total value locked (TVL). USDT on Tron has $80 billion. What does this mean? The largest on Ethereum is 46.77%, and the second is Tron at 43.07%, which is over 80%.

Chase: And Tether’s annual income is $15 billion. Their pure profit is almost… you think about it, OpenAI loses tens of billions a year, Anthropic loses tens of billions a year; the total losses of these two don’t even exceed Tether’s income.

Class Representative: How does Tether generate income? Is it from transaction fees?

Chase: No, Tether is the issuer of USDT. The logic behind it is that if you give me $1, I buy T-bills (U.S. Treasury bonds) with that dollar. After buying T-bills, I give you the USDT token. So for you, it’s just $1 exchanged for a USDT token, right? One dollar for one dollar, and you can go play. But for me, every dollar that comes in allows me to earn interest from the T-bills issued by the Federal Reserve. As long as my scale is large enough, I can keep earning this interest spread of 3.5%. That’s how much interest there is, about $15 billion a year.

Class Representative: Good, haha. Sun Ge is indeed wealthy. What’s next?

Chase: He is indeed wealthy. Haha, I’m not familiar with Sun Ge, but I can provide you with some links for gossip; it’s not good to talk about people in public.

Wealth Distribution and the "Cultivation" Metaphor

Class Representative: Well… indeed. How about we talk about the stories of getting rich quickly in the cryptocurrency space? What kind of people are these? We just discussed the essence or value of this place, and talked about its current state, right? For example, everyone is not acting. It’s actually a very clear trading space. I think its underlying logic is quite clear. What kind of people are in this space?

Chase: I see that in all cryptocurrency gatherings, the proportion of beautiful women is particularly high.

Class Representative: Yes, it’s quite strange.

Chase: The proportion of women seeking wealth is particularly high. This can be verified. (Of course) there are many excellent women; more than half of my former colleagues are women, and they are all outstanding. The cryptocurrency industry as a whole is actually a separate world, a separate country. It has everything. This entire spectrum has everything from the far left to the far right. You think about it; on the far right, there are U.S. presidents and the highest authorities; their families are involved in many things in the cryptocurrency space. On the far left, there are people who have gone to prison for scamming others out of tens or hundreds of billions. There are all kinds of people.

Class Representative: From my perspective, I’m someone who understands technology and have made a few videos about Web3, so I have some understanding. But I feel like I’m completely outside this circle; apart from buying one Bitcoin, I have no connection to this space. I occasionally see some people around me saying they are working in Web3. It feels like only a few people are making money here, but it seems that some people, after understanding the game rules, can rapidly amplify their wealth, the so-called getting rich quickly. What proportion of practitioners do you think understand this game?

Chase: First of all, the threshold is not high. As long as you are diligent, even a high school student, not to mention in China, if you understand how to circumvent the Great Firewall, can easily earn several thousand RMB a month.

Class Representative: Through what means? Trading or what?

Chase: By participating in new projects, like airdrops and such. It’s actually part of monetizing traffic. Because this industry has enough liquidity or enough bubbles. Therefore, the economic returns you can obtain by spending the same amount of time will definitely be higher than in traditional manufacturing or in the primary and secondary industries.

Class Representative: This sounds like there’s a lot of spiritual energy here. The Yuan Ying monks are fighting, or when they are working on projects, they are past the Qi refining stage, seeking some elixirs. Hahaha!

Chase: That’s about the idea. Because it’s not that competitive. It seems like there’s a lot of money, but there aren’t many people. Binance now has about 300 million registered users, KYC verified. But in reality, I think the number of active people in this industry is probably less than a million, around a million.

Class Representative: Besides seeking elixirs, what else can they do?

Chase: Seeking elixirs and many other abstract things. For example, NFTs were quite popular in the last cycle, right? They are essentially just small images. But it’s like the Dutch tulip bubble model. Many people play it, and this leads to many people becoming rich overnight. Where does the money of these rich people come from, and what will happen to it? It means that all new entrants can easily earn the same average income as those who are similar in understanding, as long as they are diligent. Even if someone becomes rich overnight, if they do not continue to change or improve their understanding, their money will gradually spread to other people in the circle. It’s a dynamic process. As long as this money is not spent, it remains in that place. This is fake, right? It doesn’t count as money.

Chase: This is also why I say this industry can capture a lot of excess liquidity without affecting inflation in the real economy. The money is all there; everyone can play.

Class Representative: Just like fun beans. It’s indeed similar to the tulip bubble, but it has many variations.

Chase: Yes, many variations. And everyone can create their own tulip. There’s still the idea of equality in there.

Class Representative: So what are the Yuan Ying monks doing?

Chase: The Yuan Ying monks are also divided into factions, many factions. Some are value-oriented, like Richard, or cash flow-oriented, like our boss. They already have a lot of money; they may not care about cash flow but are more concerned about their industry status. Others are the so-called Hacker Builders, providing new technologies, like FHE, ZK, and these things, which are also very interesting.

Class Representative: Hahaha, alchemists.

Chase: And they are very useful. Why? Because without Crypto, technologies like ZK or FHE find it hard to have large-scale applications in the real world. First, it requires a long-term investment in infrastructure, and it may not even be good. However, in the Crypto circle, as long as you have something that everyone recognizes as a public good or valuable, it can be priced. This is also the attractive aspect of this circle, I think.

Class Representative: But it sounds like the people making big money are still those manipulating the market rather than those developing technology. Especially for these stories to hold, the biggest problem is that the narrative is very beautiful. For this narrative to hold, the technical investment required is actually very large. But it seems…

Chase: Yes, that’s right.

Class Representative: It’s very hard to incentivize those who really have the technology to invest. There are two thresholds: the first is that there isn’t enough money, and the second is that they are too close to the money, which becomes a problem. For example, I think these things sound great, and I want to invest, but I know the temptations, challenges, noise, and the scythes faced here are very numerous. I don’t think I can survive well in this space.

Chase: Yes, you’ve expressed the feelings of most people. Many people want to enter the circle or want to do something; there are definitely various risks. Because it’s still a somewhat wild era, it hasn’t fully formalized yet. But it’s getting there quickly; Binance has already obtained a global license in Abu Dhabi, and compliance will continue to improve.

Advice for Newcomers: Bitcoin and Stablecoins

Chase: For individuals, I think everyone should first eliminate their distractions. First, understand what this industry is all about. What is it doing? Why is there so much money? Why are so many talented people entering this industry? It’s still a high talent density and high capital density industry. If you don’t understand, it shouldn’t be a problem with the industry; it should be your problem. This is also why I convinced myself to spend eight years doing nothing but diving into this matter. Moreover, it’s particularly friendly to young people; it doesn’t care about your identity or status; it only cares about whether you put in the effort and whether you seriously study and learn. You can earn your living expenses or some initial income, which is definitely better than working.

Class Representative: Lastly, I want to ask you one question. For our channel's typical audience, such as someone in the tech industry who has accumulated some wealth through working and wants to make money in the cryptocurrency space, not to mention participating in building the cryptocurrency space, what advice do you have for them in 2026?

Chase: My advice is that they should at least first understand the two mainstream things in the cryptocurrency space. One is BTC, as capital allocation, as gold or whatever; they should first buy a little to test. But this is not investment advice. The second thing is stablecoins. The stablecoin thing will almost certainly have a big explosion this year; I’ve been sharing this within my team since the year before last. Last year, this wave of explosion was almost confirmed, and this year it will be realized. Because it will challenge almost all banking systems and traditional financial systems in terms of payments, whether it’s C2C/B2B/B2C.

Class Representative: My understanding is that stablecoins are a good trading tool, but they don’t have particularly good investment opportunities to make money. Is that right?

Chase: If you look at it, of course, you can look at U.S. stocks, look at Circle, look at Robinhood, look at Coinbase; these three targets can all be looked at. I think there are still undervalued ones. For example… of course, I can’t mention names, haha, but there are undervalued ones. But you need to first experience why this will be a challenge. Because besides being bullish, you can also be bearish. If the challenged side doesn’t react quickly enough, can you short them? Right? There are many strategies based on information and fixed trends that you can deploy.

About AI Courses and Learning Methods

Class Representative: I suddenly have an idea; I can invite you to Superlinear to hold a paid closed-door sharing session. This isn’t investment advice, but I think you’ve done a lot of research, right? These things should be able to be discussed with everyone.

Chase: Of course, of course, let me finish the AI course first, haha. I haven’t had time to discuss the AI course yet, sigh~ hehehe.

Class Representative: A good opportunity to sell courses. You have indeed been paying attention to this AI course. Previously, you were particularly busy with work, spending over ten hours a day on more than 1,000 projects; it was all about time. But now that you’re starting to step back, you can look at this course. I’ve heard you have some insights; could you briefly share a bit with everyone?

Chase: This course, for me, is particularly suitable for me after the term "vibe coding" came out. For me, I might not focus on the details; I might first look at the framework, see what can’t be used, and what can’t be done. For example, I just watched a video by Duck Brother today; after you import the API key, you need to put it in the .env file, right? Instead of being passively uploaded. These are things that a non-engineer beginner wouldn’t know; this should be emphasized. Even an initial list, a not-to-do list.

Class Representative: I’ll tell Duck Brother about this list and summarize it. Hey~ Have you watched the AI era programming basics course?

Chase: I’ve watched it; it should be very useful. Because when I replied to your message that day, I was halfway through that course and was just deploying my own locally hosted agent to help me check various trading data. It’s stored on my phone, allowing it to call different APIs to check this information for me. It’s very useful for me. In the future, we might even do a separate MCP to, you know, work on Crypto-related APIs.

Class Representative: I think these courses serve a significant role for you, teaching specific points that are useful, and the mindset and habits are also beneficial. However, I think a unique value lies in Duck Brother’s deep understanding and first-principle thinking, allowing him to confidently state what is useless and what learning methods are wrong. Many people are afraid to say this because they fear being wrong. They lack confidence in their ideas. Duck Brother has completely figured out why things were this way before and are that way now. For example, he can say that learning AI through frameworks is wrong. Most people wouldn’t dare to say that; they only dare to muddle through.

Chase: You might need to be someone with ten years of experience to sense that. For me, Duck Brother has guided me through it. However, when he guided me, there were many details I had to explore and figure out myself, and I didn’t know how many pitfalls I stepped into.

Class Representative: Right.

Chase: The reason I say this is that I wrote an article in the community today. Someone said, "There are so many free resources online; why are the courses so expensive?" I said this course, compared to the pitfalls it saves you, helps you save a day’s time, and that money is worth it. Learning online for ten minutes and wasting a day is basically the situation. Online resources are… a drop in the bucket. When you two release a course, I’ll be the first to buy it. Once I buy it, I’ll watch it when I have time. I’ve never hesitated because I know it’s very cheap, a few hundred dollars. Especially for people in the cryptocurrency space, a few hundred dollars feels like nothing. That few hundred dollars can help me open up the most direct understanding of a new field in the most efficient way. This is very efficient for investors, especially for someone with my mindset. I highly recognize your value.

Future Plans: From Power Player to Building Influence

Class Representative: Thank you, thank you. Now let’s address your question. How do you think I should maximize my domain knowledge? In terms of your overall value, when you had power, what was the ratio of power to your domain knowledge?

Chase: 2:8, meaning power is 2.

Class Representative: In others’ eyes?

Chase: In others’ eyes, it might be reversed.

Class Representative: In others’ eyes, I think it might be 99:1.

Chase: That’s also possible. I think we need to think about this. It’s very normal. In any large company, a VP of that level often finds that once they leave, nobody cares. To be honest, I’ve always maintained a beginner’s mindset. You see, I jumped from investment to Crypto, and my first job was also a very basic entry-level job, so I don’t care. What I care about is that my vision and value need to be reflected. My value, this data, has already been input into my model; I want to output it. But first, someone needs to ask the right questions, and second, I need a suitable platform for everyone to understand.

Class Representative: What do you envision as the maximized leverage outcome? Is it monetary income, influence, or something else? This is somewhat similar to the second question; we can ask them together. The second question is how to prioritize building IP and cash-rich businesses. Most people have neither money nor influence, so since you are still here choosing, do you already have enough money?

Chase: I can’t say I have enough, but I’m not particularly worried about family or children.

Class Representative: What do you envision as the maximized leverage outcome?

Chase: My vision is that I believe this industry still has 20-30 years left, and I hope to keep eating the industry’s beta. Occasionally, there will be some alpha that comes out. That’s my goal. Money? In general, in this industry, fame and profit are one and the same for me. If you have fame, you will naturally have profit.

Class Representative: Your situation is very unique. I’ll first give a relatively generic suggestion for someone who isn’t in such a situation, and then I’ll see if I can customize something. The generic suggestion is that I think the first step in entrepreneurship is to do knowledge monetization, which is very reasonable. Because it’s non-standard with high unit prices, and if you now do something standard, it’s hard to justify your time investment. Because the profit margins of standard products are very low. Moreover, you have so much knowledge, and there’s so much demand for this knowledge in the market. So I think this is a reasonable path. If you’re interested, we can discuss whether there’s a way to help you with this. The key is to build a foundational business, I think, and a foundational income. Then see if you can exchange chips on top of that. That’s roughly the idea.

Class Representative: Additionally, I think it’s very important for you to build your own assets. And this asset should ideally be one that can generate cash. For example, this community is such an asset. In the cryptocurrency space, I don’t know what kind of assets there are. It sounds like launching a project like this might be possible, or how?

Chase: If you want to enter the cryptocurrency space, I can help you play it well. Hahaha, but under the current conditions, it’s not good for your reputation. However, in the cryptocurrency space, when it’s about to reach maturity, that’s when you should cash out. I don’t think my reputation is that important. Just yesterday, I was in a snow circle saying, "Everyone go skiing," and someone said, "Hey, we’ve caught a YouTube god." I said, "Don’t call me a YouTube god; call me the course-selling little demon." But indeed, this is not my current focus; I’m still focused on doing that course well. So we can think and discuss this in the second half of the year.

Class Representative: Anyway, you need to build an asset that belongs to you. And this asset, if you want to capture its industry growth, must be one that can appreciate along with the industry growth. I just don’t know what kind of assets are most suitable in this regard. But I believe you can definitely have better ideas. My feeling is that it’s already very difficult to build such an asset in the ordinary world in five years; it might be faster in the cryptocurrency space. And you’ve already started working on your agent and have the AI boost, plus you have this knowledge advantage. My suggestion is to try to find a partner; you have such a large network in the industry, and everyone trusts you so much. Most people should see your power, but there should be some who recognize you personally.

Chase: Yes, you’re right.

Class Representative: Then find someone, whether it’s a big brother who can share a piece of business with you or a new project, giving you certain resources and backing to do it, or find someone similar to you but with complementary skills to do it together. I think both can help you establish a more influential asset faster. Your vision, why I hesitate, is that I think your vision is a particularly attractive one. But it easily leads into a purely influence-based route, which may not be what you want.

Chase: I understand.

Class Representative: A purely influence-based route is actually very hard to build. Influence depreciates very quickly. So today you released something; the best result is that everyone shares it, and they think what you said is great. But three months later? If you can’t land it, what’s the use of it? You still need a big brother like CZ to rally the industry and say, "We need to land this as an industry standard, and I want to promote real collaborations at the Yuan Ying monk level," then it might be possible.

Chase: That’s already at the transformation level.

Class Representative: The Yuan Ying monk alliance should also be possible. But it’s hard for individuals to achieve.

Chase: You’re right. The two points you gave me are actually what I’ve been divining; these are the two points. Either I find a very good platform, or I find a very good partner.

Class Representative: Yes, it depends on your personality. I think finding a platform is definitely a particularly good method. Because partners can always be found, but opportunities like platforms are hard to grasp.

Chase: It depends on fate. In this circle, is there any platform bigger than Binance? There’s a position, right? You jumped from this position at Binance to another place to do something else. The size of the platform and your role in it are both very important.

Class Representative: In terms of companies in this industry, your position is at the top. But it’s not what you want to do.

Chase: Yeah, your fame and everything, especially in terms of real power, are at the top. But it can’t be transformed into your ideals.

Class Representative: What I mean is to find someone who believes in you, a platform that believes in you, providing you with corresponding resources, and then you can realize your ideals. And this realization of ideals is certainly not something that can be achieved overnight.

Chase: In my view, you need to do a project that you can present. I definitely need to keep grinding every day; this has already become a habit. We can schedule another time to discuss other topics.

Class Representative: Sounds good. Thank you very much for today’s content, haha.

Chase: No problem, no problem. Thank you, thank you.