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Bybit Learn spoke to Unipcs, known as Bonk Guy on Crypto Twitter (CT) for turning $16,000 into over $18 million on his BONK position on Bybit.
A long-time user of Bybit and a Bybit partner, Unipcs sheds light on his crypto journey so far, sharing valuable insights on how to handle holding positions through large volatility, his outlook for meme coins and market predictions for 2025.
Let's dive in!
*Please note that this article and any tokens mentioned is not financial advice. The interview is slightly edited for formatting and grammar.
Q: Happy new year Unipcs! It's been a few months since you last spoke to Bybit. During that time, Bitcoin went above 100K and the term "Bonk Guy Was Right" was all over CT. How did it feel like being the main character on CT?
Unipcs: Happy new year, sir! ❤️🔥
I've never cared about being 'main character' because it is often just a fleeting distraction and zero indication of how well you can trade or how much money you'll make at the end of the day, which is what matters most.
Although I did feel validation from people acknowledging that I at least know what I'm talking about due to the outperformance of my BONK trade, since many were clowning about me when I first came into the scene over a year ago and were claiming that I got lucky with that trade.
Q: What is Bonk Guy's crypto story — when and how did you get into crypto? How much did you start with? And what are some advice you would give to someone new starting out in crypto with a small portfolio?
Unipcs: I first discovered crypto over a decade ago when the Silk Road was being widely covered by mainstream media and they all kept mentioning the key role Bitcoin is playing in it.
I didn't take Bitcoin seriously at the time because it was painted as this shady internet money used by drug lords and serial killers.
I eventually did my own research and got into crypto years later when I realized that the media won't stop talking about it and something seemed off with the narrative they were painting.
I didn't start with a lot of capital: I initially started with five figures, lost everything, then restarted with much smaller capital. I can't remember the exact amount now, but it should be roughly mid to high four figs, and I've mostly built everything from there.
My advice if you're starting with a small portfolio and your goal is to rapidly increase your capital is that you should think beyond BTC: While BTC is the safest cryptocurrency to hold, you might want to consider having exposure to altcoins, meme coins and low caps.
Once you realize that you need altcoins to rapidly increase your small portfolio, how do you allocate?
Three things to pay attention to when allocating to altcoins/meme coins/low caps:
Narrative: you want to buy low caps that are part of a trending narrative. This cycle we've so far had a lot of strong narratives: AI, meme coins, RWA, DeSci, etc. You also want to make sure your coin has strong enough fundamentals to benefit from this narrative, e.g. a first mover, a project backed by key industry heavyweights, or the most reactive coin whenever that narrative trends.
Liquidity: It is also important to make sure that your coin is liquid enough for people to buy and sell. In other words, it should have good enough liquidity on DEXs while also being on as many widely-used CEXs as possible. All things being equal, the most liquid coin will win.
Community: Finally, you want to make sure you are betting on tokens with strong, cult-like communities. I'm talking about communities that remain resolute, active, and confident that their project is the future of finance even during periods of market bloodbaths. The stronger the community, the more successful the project will be.
Q: In the last interview, you mentioned that FLOKI is your biggest meme coin holding. Is that still the case? What are some of your biggest meme coin holdings currently?
Unipcs: This is still the case: FLOKI remains my biggest meme coin holding.
I also have heavy exposure to the following meme coins:
BONK (goes without saying, of course!)
Department of Government Efficiency
Simon's Cat
BONGO
Project89
A number of strong Bitcoin meme coins: PUPS, WZRD, etc
And more recently, the market is choosing to go full r*tard, and I'm embracing it rather than fight it, so I now hold both Fartcoin and Butthole coin. as funny as that sounds! 😂
Q: In one of your most recent calls, you publicly called the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E) meme coin early before it rallied to $500M. How did you build conviction at an early stage, and what are some of the criteria you look at when selecting meme coins?
Unipcs: I first publicly called D.O.G.E around $9 million market cap, where I suggested not to fade it because Elon Musk is the greatest KOL alive and it's not even close!
To give you an idea of how much pull Elon has:
Last cycle, he memed Dogecoin from a market cap of $300 million to $88 billion simply by tweeting about Doge and posting Dogecoin memes.
Last cycle he also memed SHIB from a market cap of literally zero to $43 billion+ simply by sharing memes and funny tweets about 'Shiba Inu'. while he made a reference to Shiba Inu because it is the Dogecoin dog breed, his pull was so powerful that the SHIB meme coin rocketed to over $43 billion because it was named 'Shiba Inu'
I've been here for several cycles and have made the majority of my wealth trading meme coins, and one of the most important lessons I've learned is to NEVER FADE ELON.
I mean just a week ago, a random meme coin pumped from sub $10m market cap to $400m market cap in 24 hours because Elon changed his name and profile picture to the Elon meme narrative that meme coin was created after.
The 'Department of Government Efficiency' narrative is probably the biggest meme coin narrative of this cycle, and one that Elon has been bullposting aggressively and will continue to.
The reason why the narrative is so big is because Elon thought it would be comical to have the acronym of a major US govt department be the same as that of his favorite meme coin Dogecoin. So he memed the idea of a Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E) which Trump embraced and will now be launching.
This meme resulted in the birth of a new meme coin, 'Department of Government Efficiency', named after the actual department and narrative and it is currently one of the most undervalued meme coins in the space IMO.
I first called it at $9 million market cap, then it dipped to $6m market cap and i doubled down by buying more and telling people it is incredibly undervalued, then it rocketed to $500 million in a few weeks after Trump won and it was confirmed that the Department of Government Efficiency will be established. It is now sitting around $200m, after a cool down from the initial parabolic pump, and I think it is going much higher from here.
I pay attention to three key things when trying to build conviction in a meme coin, and these three things were why I felt that the Department of Government Efficiency meme coin will be such a winner so early on:
Narrative: Department of Government Efficiency is one of the strongest meme narratives of this cycle. Due to Elon Musk's involvement in the department and his regularly bullposting the narrative, it is going to be the most controversial U.S department and a narrative the US media and literally everyone will not be able to stop talking about for the next four years. Since meme coins are all about mindshare, this will fuel the mindshare of the meme coin of the same name and help its growth.
Liquidity: The meme coin is very liquid on-chain. It is also cross-chain and can be traded on the Ethereum, Solana, and Base blockchains. It also recently got a few CEX listings and I'm hoping it gets on Bybit soon.
Community: It has a strong, cult-like community who believe it is going to multi billions and continue to shill it everywhere.
Q: Are you still bullish on D.O.G.E and why?
Unipcs: Yes, I'm still incredibly bullish on the Department of Government Efficiency / D.O.G.E meme coin because it is based on one of this cycle's greatest narratives and what I believe will be a strong narrative for the rest of the Trump administration.
And also for the reasons I highlighted above: it has strong narrative, community, and liquidity.
Elon Musk will literally be bullposting the narrative all cycle as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency. He also mentioned that there will be weekly 'Dogecasts' where they will promote transparency by talking about the activity of the department. This will create a lot of fodder for the mainstream media, citizen journalists, and literally everyone to start talking about the D.O.G.E department and narrative, and the irony of there being a meme coin named after it at incredible valuations, which will only increase its mindshare and help it send harder.
Q: In the last few months, you pointed out that "dino coins" had a strong run but meme coins are going to pump harder. Why do you think so?
Unipcs: It has always been this way every cycle.
Retail goes dormant into the bear market for a very long time until they hear about crypto still thriving years later.
Then they start gradually coming in and the first thing they rush to buy is the coins they are familiar with i.e. the DINO coins they bought last cycle. Eventually, they get more integrated into the ecosystem and learn that there are interesting meme coins that have outperformed all cycle, then they buy those as well.
Q: You mentioned in one of your posts that you think "this cycle will be different from others in some way." Could you elaborate on that?
Unipcs: To be clear, when I say that I think this cycle will be different, I'm not trying to say that the bull run will not come to an end. It will!
I'm trying to say that a lot of people are underestimating how crazy things could get this cycle: For the very first time in crypto's 15-year history, we're going to have a US president that isn't just pro-crypto, but actually holds and uses crypto and is packing his cabinet with pro-crypto candidates and has promised to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
The implication of this is more than many realize: a strong message has been sent to the rest of the world about crypto and the effect of that is still yet to unfold IMO.
Then you can add to that the massive ETF flows and continued integration of crypto into the world's financial system.
This cycle will be a big one in a way that would greatly surprise many IMO.
Q: You highlight 3 verticals: meme coins, AI and RWA. With the recent hype over AI coins, what is your view on this narrative? And do you think it will outperform meme coins?
Unipcs: What's interesting is that I've seen many recently tweet about how meme coins are dead and AI is the only sector that will thrive this cycle, as if the recent AI trend is a new development.
I've been publicly highlighting the outperformance of the meme coin, AI, and RWA segments for around a year now and have said they would be the main narratives to watch this year. And that has so far played out!
So the recent outperformance of the AI agents aligns with what I've been saying since almost a year ago and is not, in fact, new and in due time, there will be a rotation back to meme coins and RWA later in the cycle and then rinse repeat.
Instead of thinking about which of the three verticals will outperform, why not have exposure to all three?
Q: You've held your BONK position throughout multiple large drawdowns. How did you deal with the volatility associated with meme coins, and how did you build the mental resilience to hold?
Unipcs: I strongly believe that you cannot make generational wealth in crypto if you do not have the ability to stomach large drawdowns.
It is ironic that many want their coins to pump 1,000% but are then worried when it drops 90%. The same volatility that could allow a 90% drop is what allows you to enjoy a 1,000% pump. Realizing this has been a key learning experience for me!
I've traded hundreds of meme coins over the years, across cycles, and have seen how the most successful meme coins in history played out. In fact, I have had a lot of instances in which I purchased a meme coin and then sold due to impatience after a large and prolonged drawdown, only for the meme coin to rip hard after and go up thousands of Xs from where I sold... resulting in me losing generational wealth that would have easily netted me 8 figures each on several of my trades if I had held.
Meme coins by their very nature are incredibly volatile. All the most successful meme coins have a history of insane volatility: DOGE, SHIB, BONK, etc, all had their own periods of 99% drawdowns after their initial rallies.
So, it isn't unusual for a meme coin to experience a significant correction after its first few pumps.
The key thing is to have a thesis, and one that is as objective as possible, for any meme coin you're trading and then re-evaluate this thesis on a regular basis. If your thesis stands, then periods of sharp drawdowns should be opportunities to buy more or simply HODL.
Q: What are some of your biggest trading mistakes? What did you learn from it and how did you overcome it?
Unipcs: My biggest trading mistake is having a lack of conviction: I've had early entries into some of the world's biggest meme coins and altcoins in the early days, including meme coins like Shiba Inu for example, where I invested a few hundreds of dollars and sold for a few Xs what would have resulted in thousands of Xs and would be worth 8 figures at its peak.
My second biggest mistake is oversizing and overtrading: Many hear about my story and think about me as some god-tier trader because I turned $16k to $18,000,000+ on a single trade, but I make sure to emphasize repeatedly on my Twitter page that I make mistakes and I'm often wrong. One such mistake is oversizing and overtrading after a big win. This mistake has resulted in me losing seven figures from FOMO trading, be it on perps leverage or by buying the top of tokens that have pumped.
As a result, I have learned that sometimes the best thing to do is just sit on my hands and watch, especially when I feel the strongest urge to FOMO.
I've learnt that there is an overabundance of opportunities in this space and new opportunities will always come, so it is better to resist the urge to FOMO at all times no matter what.
Q: What are your strategies on taking profits? How do you deal with FOMO/greed when price continues to pump?
Unipcs: I simply give myself a target for my coins and take profit there. Sometimes this is a market cap target, at other times it is a sentiment target (e.g. what's the sentiment about this coin or the market as a whole at this time?)
For example, I intend to exit the majority of my positions this cycle once I think the market is in a stage of retail euphoria or mania, regardless of the price or market cap of the token.
I'm not too bothered about FOMO/greed when price continues to pump. That only bothers me when I sold due to a lack of conviction, but if I sold because a coin hits my target, then whatever happens after is none of my business.
Q: Besides your very televised BONK long on Bybit, how else do you use Bybit in your trading/investing strategy?
Unipcs: I use Bybit for spot trading and perps trading of other cryptocurrencies as well, especially low caps.
Bybit has been pretty good at listing some of the hottest meme coins this cycle very early, especially on perps as a low cap, so this has made it one of my favorite exchanges for trading perps on low cap meme coins before Binance or other T1s list the meme coin.
Q: Finally, what are your predictions for the crypto market in 2025?
Unipcs:
I expect BTC to hit a minimum of $150,000 this year.
I expect crypto to have its first $100 billion market cap meme coin this year, i.e. DOGE.
I expect DOGE to hit $1 this year.
I expect all the four new meme coins listed in the VanEck meme coin Index last year to each hit a $10b market valuation (i.e. BONK, PEPE, FLOKI, WIF).
I expect the total meme coin market cap to hit a peak valuation of between $300 billion to $500 billion.
I expect the AI trend to only grow stronger from here.
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