As a professional translator, I would translate this news article into English as follows:
Title: Andrew Kang: A Well-Known Bear on Ethereum and a Cryptocurrency Advocate
Author: Wenser
Editor’s Note: Recently, Andrew Kang, co-founder of Mechanism Capital, made bearish comments on ETH. Azuma, a senior author at Odaily, translated his remarks in an article titled “Ethereum Bear Declaration: ETH/BTC Will Drop for Another Year.” Although many people may have limited knowledge about Kang, he has been deeply involved in the cryptocurrency industry for many years. He has invested in high-value projects such as Thorchain, Pancakeswap, and Frax Finance, and has achieved significant success in trading. This article, in combination with insights shared by X platform user @Atlas, provides an introduction to Andrew Kang for readers’ reference.
Current View: Limited Upside for ETH, BTC May Reach New Highs in 2025
In the current volatile market, everyone has different opinions. However, as a capital partner, cryptocurrency KOL, and legendary trader, Andrew Kang’s perspective and views may be more valuable.
On June 24th, Kang posted on X platform, saying, “I have come to realize that this is the first full bullish cycle that many cryptocurrency investors have experienced. During this bull market, BTC has experienced very limited multiple-day declines, staying within 20%. Many people seem to have increased leverage during the previous pullback in April. However, in the previous cycle, the market frequently experienced leveraged liquidations, resulting in retracements of 30% to 60%, evaporating hundreds of billions of dollars. Different cycles have different paradigms, but when people become too comfortable and believe that certain things cannot happen, disaster usually strikes. Although I hold a bearish position, this does not mean I am telling you to short the market or sell everything. Pay attention to investment risks and don’t put all your bets on one trade. If faced with larger market volatility than expected, having more reserve capital options is invaluable.”
Subsequently, perhaps to avoid being proven wrong or because the risk warning was not clear enough, he added, “The current market environment reminds me of May 2021, not June 2021, let alone December 2020. At that time, we were used to only going up and competing to buy the dip. We experienced a major correction from $64,000 to $45,000, but everyone expected a rebound. However, the bottom continued to fall. We held on to hope, such as the arrival of more retail investors, $40,000 as strong support, super cycles, and so on. The current environment is similar, as we are 9-10 months into a bull market. Except this time, Ethereum ETF – which legendary trader GCR expressed bullishness about – is in play. I believe GCR’s timeframe over multiple years is correct, and we will see BTC reach new highs in 2025 (but not all altcoins will do the same). This does not mean the market will not experience extreme corrections within a few months. After all, the market can humble anyone, taming even the most unruly.”
On June 23rd, Kang wrote an article analyzing the potential impact of Ethereum spot ETFs on the market. He believed that Bitcoin spot ETFs provided a channel for many new buyers to allocate Bitcoin in their portfolios, but the impact of Ethereum ETFs was not as clear. Unless Ethereum creates a convincing path to improve its economic situation, its price will not see significant upside from the approval of spot ETFs.
On June 20th, Kang’s view remained consistent: “Although the market has shifted from rising to falling due to the lack of significant ETF inflows, I firmly believe that Bitcoin will remain strong and will not drop below $50,000. As for Ethereum, I predict its price may remain stable until the ETF is listed, but the upper limit of its rise this year is expected to be around $4,000.”
It is clear that Kang has a more positive outlook on Bitcoin than Ethereum, based on his rich experience in the cryptocurrency market.
Multiple Roles: Cryptocurrency KOL and Investor Extraordinaire
Up to now, Kang’s personal account on X platform has over 260,000 followers. Previously, he was the co-founder of cryptocurrency mining operator MinerUpdate and stated that most mining businesses currently do not use derivatives. This presents a huge opportunity for derivative exchanges such as Deribit, BitMEX, and Binance. As mining competition intensifies and profit margins decrease, mining operators will need to enter the derivatives market to survive and thrive. The resulting trading activities can generate returns several times higher than mining activities.
In June 2020, Mechanism Capital’s official account was established, and Kang transformed from a trader and cryptocurrency KOL into a cryptocurrency investor. “Invest when influential” is a major characteristic of the cryptocurrency industry. As mentioned in a previous article titled “Decoding Top KOL Investment Lists to Find New Alpha,” when the influence of KOL reaches a certain level and personal wealth increases, it naturally leads to more investment opportunities. Becoming a cryptocurrency angel investor is a logical step for some, while others choose to establish an institution and operate an investment fund. Kang chose the latter. Previously, Mechanism Capital successfully invested in well-known blockchain projects like NEON.
In February of this year, Kang shared his investment philosophy on social media platforms, stating that the key to achieving thousand-fold returns lies in identifying teams with outstanding product potential at an early stage. He mentioned, “In 2018, I had a $50,000 investment portfolio, and by the middle of 2021, I had grown it to a scale similar to many well-known cryptocurrency funds in the field without absorbing any external capital. The only way this is possible is by identifying S-level teams with outstanding product potential early on, accumulating a significant portion of the project’s ownership through the open market, and fully supporting them until they appreciate by over 100 times, some even 1000 times. Support includes token incentives/issuance design, marketing/community development strategies, DeFi integration/partnerships, exchange connections, product design, introducing other signals/value-added funds/investors/users/developers, and becoming a high-energy user of the protocol, among others. Many of these projects I followed from their early stage with market caps below $50 million, growing to over $2 billion, and some even exceeding $5 billion, including Thorchain, Pancakeswap, Frax Finance, etc.”
Kang’s Investment Portfolio Snapshot
According to data from @CryptoRank_io, Kang’s most recent and well-known investments are in @Blast_L2 and @puffer_finance. In addition, he has invested in NFT mortgage lending platform MetaStreet, Solana ecosystem cross-chain communication network Zeus Network (and led the investment), crypto gaming platform Shuffle, Blast ecosystem lending project Orbit Protocol, RWA Layer 2 network Plume Network, and many other projects.
Moreover, according to data from Rootdata, Kang has invested in 12 projects in the past year, with 15 recorded projects. This includes his deep involvement in the NFT crowdfunding DAO organization PleasrDAO.
It is worth mentioning that according to Rootdata, his network of connections includes several partners of Mechanism Capital, such as Steven Cho, Ken, Marc Weinstein, as well as PleasrDAO founder DeFiTed.
This brings us to another aspect of Kang’s multiple identities: a senior NFT collector and an active participant in meme coins.
Cultural Enthusiast: Azuki, a Favorite and Meme Coins as a New Asset Class
As early as 2021, Mechanism Capital had invested in the NFT project Kanon. The first sub-project launched by Kanon was K21, a closed art cannon pool that provided liquidity exposure to 21 influential contemporary, digital, and crypto artists’ works. It combined the artists’ creative motivations with investors’ returns through DeFi integration, reshaping funding, charity, curation, and custody models.
In September 2022, Kang purchased Azuki #4978 for 105 ETH (worth about $143,000 at the time) through the NFT trading platform X2Y2. In October 2022, he bought Azuki #5558 through the same platform for 200 ETH.
In June 2023, according to data from the Nansen cryptocurrency data monitoring platform, Kang held 299 Azuki tokens and 580 Elementals, making him the largest holder in both series. At that time, he also held 436 BEANZ tokens.
In March 2024, Kang purchased the original 3AC (Three Arrows Capital) Pepe NFTs from the auction house Sotheby’s. This NFT was the first Pepe NFT authorized by the creator Matt Furie and was first sold on April 17, 2021, for 420 ETH. It was later acquired by 3AC’s subsidiary Starry Night Capital on October 5, 2021, for 10,000 ETH.
Not only that, Kang has a high opinion of meme coins and has made multiple purchases. He even changed his X platform account avatar to the IQ 50 meme character.
In February of this year, Kang made a high-profile statement: his cryptocurrency fund, Mechanism Capital, had bet on Trump-themed tokens and related NFTs. Subsequently, Nansen monitoring data showed that on January 19, the Mechanism Capital wallet purchased approximately 500,000 TRUMP tokens at an average cost of about $0.506. On the same day, the wallet made another purchase of 23,900 TRUMP tokens. Out of these, 136,200 TRUMP tokens were allocated to the Mechanism Capital wallet, 135,800 TRUMP tokens were sent to the Mechanism Capital team-related wallet, and 58,400 TRUMP tokens were sent to partner Marc Weinstein’s wallet.
In March, Kang openly declared, “Meme coins have become a global speculative liquidity focus. Compared to traditional equities, global users now have easy access to meme coins. That’s why Dogecoin’s increase exceeded the rise of Gamestop’s stock price. In the previous cycle, the total market value of meme coins reached $100 billion, and the peak market value of each cycle usually sees multiple times of growth. Retail investors, HWN traders, and hedge funds are gradually entering, and there is still a long way to go in the future.” He further stated, “New funds will continue to buy meme coins” to achieve excess returns in the market. He boldly predicted, “Meme Coins 2.0 or ‘culture coins’ will emerge, targeting specific audiences/ideologies/groups. Each celebrity/influencer will have their favorite collaboration token, mainly tokens not listed on centralized exchanges. This means new dollars will be spent purchasing a large number of SOL-based tokens, just like the ETH and NFT season in the past.”
Subsequently, the market indeed developed as anticipated. Popular Solana meme coins such as BOME, NAP, and SLERF emerged, and, combined with older projects like PEPE, PEOPLE, WIF, BONK, and FLOKI, they sparked a meme coin frenzy. The subsequent JENNER and MOTHER meme coin projects, initiated by pump.fun, also serve as examples of meme coins involving celebrities.
At that time, he had a high opinion of meme coins, which differentiated him from other market views: “Meme coins are not a zero-sum game but a new asset class.”
Conclusion: A Good Trader is Someone Who Dares to Make Judgments
Looking back at Kang’s past investment experiences and social media posts, we can see a charismatic individual who dares to make judgments amidst the complex market environment. He can react to the market appropriately and provide analytical reasoning. At the same time, he actively supports investment projects and promotes promising narrative tracks. It can be said that his success in becoming a wealthy investor is not accidental but the result of his journey from scratch to the present.
It is not surprising that in February of this year, Chris Burniske, former ARK Invest cryptocurrency lead and current Placeholder VC partner, expressed an open attitude towards Kang’s view that Bitcoin prices would reach a new all-time high in March. Subsequently, the market trend indeed followed suit.
Of course, Kang’s investment experience has not been without challenges. For example, he once built a position in CELR in 2021 and put forward the forward-looking view that “Layer 2 is not a winner-takes-all field.” Although the token is currently less prominent, his viewpoint still has much to learn from.
Kang, through his personal experience, teaches us that it is important to present our views and make our own judgments. Only by doing so can we find our own “mechanism principles” and grow into a capital giant in the turbulent cryptocurrency market.
Tags:
Andrew Kang
Azuki
Figure
NFT
Ethereum
Source link:
https://www.odaily.news/post/5196382
Note: The opinions expressed in the article do not constitute investment advice.
Original article link:
https://www.bitpush.news/articles/6912755
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