In this exclusive AMA, we’re chatting with Bonk Guy, a major voice in the Solana scene. If you're already in the Bonk community, you probably know him for his ability to rally the masses around memecoins, and now he's got his eye on something new: Runes.
With Runes still in its early days, Bonk Guy gives us his take on how this Bitcoin-based token could be the next move for Solana users, and what makes it stand out in the broader crypto landscape. From his early Solana days to why he’s betting on Runes, Bonk Guy shares his thoughts on community, cross-chain exposure and the future of crypto.
“I first heard about Bitcoin over a decade ago when BTC was still trading around a few hundreds of dollars per coin, and I have since kept tabs on the space even though I didn't actively trade at the time. I was especially fascinated by memecoins, especially dogecoin in its early days, but I only started actively trading memecoins last cycle which was when they really took off thanks to a combo of the memestock movement and aggressive easing and stimulus policies at the time.”
“Haha, I turned $16k to over $18 million peak on a single bonk trade: I opened a long position on BONK in October 2023 and have held through the position going up almost 100,000% and suffering several 70% drawdowns in the past year. The position is currently worth high 7 figures right now and close to 8 figures.”
“Memecoin supercycle means a prolonged period during which memecoins will have heightened mindshare, relevancy, and sustained growth/price action to the disbelief of the majority of industry participants who expect them to be a fad. I believe the memecoin supercycle is happening for a number of reasons:
1) Memecoins provide the most egalitarian way for retail participants to make it in crypto because there are no VCs, gatekeepers, or third parties that can obscure retail's early access to them.
2) Memecoins are extremely simple and easy to relate to and understand: you don't have to worry about a project's fundamentals, Price-to-Earnings (P/E) Ratio, Price-to-Sales (P/S) Ratio, Return on Equity (ROE), Cash Flow or any of that complicated nonsense. The only thing you need to ask yourself is, 'is the memecoin cool and widely accepted by a large group of people as relevant?'
3) Increasing interest in memecoins is an act of rebellion against the status quo, and this is only fueled by VCs and establishment guys who constantly try to deride retail condescendingly and telling them how they are stupid for trading 'vaporware' that has no value. Retail is essentially sending a message that they can trade whatever they want to trade and that they will.
4) Increasing interest in memecoins is fueled by increasing financial difficulties for the vast majority of people due to bad governmental monetary policies, which is widening the divide between the rich and poor, and many are increasingly disillusioned with the state of things and see a sliver of hope in crypto as the way out, and in memecoins as the fairest way to benefit from crypto's growth potential as opposed to the VC infested coins where they will simply be exit liquidity.”
“The memestock movement was a pivotal moment for me as I watched it play out live and saw the power of people rallying behind meme movements, and I saw the effect of this spill over to Dogecoin and then other memecoins like Shiba Inu and Floki last cycle. Dogecoin literally went to $90 billion ATH, and shortly after Shiba Inu went to $40 billion+ ATH.
While many were stuck in their bubble pontificating about how these memecoin valuations were 'a bubble that will only end in disaster', I saw it as a new paradigm where attention will become increasingly traded and tokenized. I decided to pay attention to the memecoin ecosystem and realized that there is so much going on that the majority of people in the mainstream and on CT do not even know.
For example, last cycle over a dozen different memecoins hit a valuation of at least $1 billion, and several hit a valuation of over $3b - $5b+, yet the majority of CT would not even be able to name the majority of these memecoins. And this was despite the industry as a whole publicly deriding memecoins last cycle! This cycle, the vast majority of people have come to a realization that memecoins are here to stay, and the next evolution is funds and publicly traded companies actively discussing allocating to memecoins.”
“This is not my first rodeo: I've had several 1,000Xs on memecoins so I know very well how the game works. I've had several moments where I sold a memecoin way too early only for it to rip hard later. A notable example is my early investment in SHIB, which i sold for 4 figures only for it to be worth 8 figures later.
I also believe that the 2021 memecoin cycle we had was just a test run, that the main action will take place this cycle, and I'm simply holding until that moment comes.”
“I take a very simple approach to memecoin trading: moon or bust.
This approach is driven by several cycles of experience trading memecoins, as I've come to realize that it would be hard to really make it big in memecoin trading if you use the same risk management approach as with other types of investments.
A notable example was the SHIB run last cycle: it had a mini pump shortly after launch, then crashed 99% and seemed dead for months only to pick up again and pump over a million percent at peak. The standard 'risk management' approach would have missed that, and believe me when i say cases like this are the most common in memecoin trading.
My 'risk management' approach for memecoin trading is three-pronged:
1. Don't ever invest more than you can afford to lose into any memecoin.
2. Only sell once the memecoin has done incredibly well. Simply ignore the memecoin altogether if it goes to zero (don't sell).
3. Have a clear thesis for investing in a memecoin: it could be because you think the meme is super cool or relatable, or because you think it is best positioned to capture liquidity and flows on a trending chain, or because you think it is on all the right CEXs and has enough traction to explode, etc.
Regardless of your reasoning, make sure you clearly understand what it is. As part of your thesis, set a target for when to take profit. E.g. at a certain market cap, or at a certain stage in the market, etc.”
“I've never thought about it. I believe my bonk PNL is going to hit at least $50m to $100m this cycle and I think closing it prior to then would be hasty and silly.”
“I think community is critical to the success of ANY crypto project, not just memecoins like Bonk. In fact, the major reason why memecoins continue to dominate now is because they are big on community and have a lot of diehard holders passionately evangelizing them and pushing their narrative.
If you think deeply, this was the same for Bitcoin in the early days: a unique and passionate set of people who really bought into the idea of cryptocurrencies and were pushing it everywhere. Same with Ethereum in its early days, and most of the very early successful crypto projects that continue to thrive (e.g. 'LINK Marines' for Chainlink, and I'm sure there are several other examples i can highlight).
In my opinion there are two main ways to nurture this community:
1. Try to make sure they get as early of an entry as possible into the token/project. If people get in before the project does a 100x, 500x, etc., then they will no doubt be more invested and passionate about the project. It is one of the key features of memecoins that make its community generally stronger than that of VC projects.
2. Ensure a decentralized decision-making process that allows every community member to have a level of ownership and responsibility for the success of the project. For example, who is the CEO of Bitcoin? How about Dogecoin? I'm sure you can make a case that the projects with the strongest communities are generally the most decentralized.”
“One of the main similarities Runes have with the early days of the main memecoins like Bonk is that no one really took them seriously in the early days: people always had a reason to fade or ignore them with excuses e.g. 'they are too illiquid,' 'they're not on any CEX so it's difficult to purchase them,' 'the market cap and/or volume is too small which means there is no interest in them.'
While those giving these excuses tend to give them to show why there is a lack of interest in these assets, the reality is that these excuses are exactly why these assets are so undervalued and why a 100x or more is possible with them.
You want to buy the asset before it becomes easy for everyone to be able to buy it, otherwise most of the Xs you could have are gone. With BONK for example, it traded sideways at a very low market cap and with barely any volume for a greater part of a year, which was when I got in: when it exploded and was trading hundreds of millions of dollars in daily volume and getting listed on Binance and Coinbase, the people who bought during the 'boring' phase of sideways and lack of interest were already up a 100x.
One of the main differences I can see with Runes compared to Bonk and other memecoins is that the BTC memecoin eco is still very nascent, and very few people have woken up to the idea of memecoins being possible on the Bitcoin chain... but they will, soon.”
“I first developed interest in Runes pre-halving this year when they initially started to gain traction: there were a few people I respect talking about them in the trenches, and while I faded most of the move using the same excuse many use now (i.e. 'the UX of BTC chain is not very good for onchain activity) I was paying attention to developments in the space. I bought seven figures worth of PUPS, WZRD, and WADDLE at the time and just held them.
After the cooldown of the initial hype at the time, I had a lightbulb moment: if people are going crazy about memecoins on every random L1 that launches (e.g. Aptos, Sui, Solana, etc.), then what is the value of memecoins on the BTC chain itself, where most of the liquidity resides, provided infra is introduced to make it easy for people to buy? I started going down that rabbit hole and then realized that Magic Eden is already building a lot of stuff that will make it extremely easy for retail to buy BTC memecoins.”
“It's very simple: the narrative alone is pretty big. BTC is orders of magnitude bigger than Solana and almost every other chain where memecoins are exploding. IF memecoins could work on BTC, and achieve a similitude of parity to the percentage of growth memecoins have on other chains, then the entire BTC memecoin ecosystem is incredibly undervalued.
Another key part of my thesis is that there is an insane amount of liquidity on the BTC chain that would not leave that chain to gamble on memecoins on other chains. The likelihood of capturing some of this to play with memecoins on the BTC chain itself is pretty big, however.”
“I think this is very important, and it's also part of my bull case for BTC memecoins. Initially, people only regarded Ethereum as the smart contract blockchain where memecoins and fungibles could be actively traded. As a result, many faded Solana for a very long time, even as memecoins and fungibles began to gain traction on the chain. The consequence of that is that they missed out on very significant wealth they could have had as an early adopter.
After Solana gained traction, other chains started coming into the picture and soon people realized that we're in an increasing multi-chain future where people can become millionaires in days just by being super early on the right chain.”
“While many simply pick a memecoin based on its 'memeability', I tend to pay attention to a lot more.
I believe three key things determine the success of a memecoin:
I think the above three things matter both broadly and specifically:
- In terms of narrative, it's pretty hard to see a stronger narrative than memecoins on the BTC chain right now tbh. I also pay a lot of attention to narratives around specific projects and how well I think they can be accepted and spread in a way that makes a case for people choosing those projects in a sea of options.
- In terms of community, I noticed Runes and BTC memecoins tend to have some of the most passionate, cult-like communities. I'm talking about in general, but it is also a key metric I pay a lot of attention to when trying to choose a specific Rune project. For example, I notice generally more engagement when I tweet about specific BTC memecoins even during periods of massive drawdowns (e.g. PUPS, WZRD, etc), which shows me the community is super strong and will passionately evangelize their memecoins until it succeeds
- In terms of liquidity, BTC is the mother of all blockchains and has a lot of native liquidity. Unlocking this might be a bit challenging due to the UX of the chain, so I also pay more attention to projects that are making it easy for people to buy their memecoin off the chain and/or that I think have really good odds of getting on more CEXs and ventures where there is an abundance of liquidity.”
“I think BTC memecoins is one of the strongest narratives we've seen among memecoins in a very long time, and the friction we're seeing right now is exactly what will allow people who get in early to make outsized gains.”
“Just Runes for now, but I'm actively paying attention to the space and will be happy to explore anything new that I believe has potential for outsized gains.”
“Perhaps the most important lesson I've learned is the importance of conviction: it does not matter how early you get into memecoins, or how good your sizing is, if you do not have conviction to hold through the volatility that memecoins are generally known for, you will not make the outsized gains that memecoins are generally known for. In fact, you might end up recording losses.
Of course I'm not advocating trading blindly here: always develop a clear thesis before you trade a memecoin. Once your thesis is formed, however, stick to it and hold until your target is achieved, regardless of the short term volatility.”
Well, congrats! You’ve reached the end of our exclusive AMA with Bonk Guy. From his experiences rallying the Bonk community to his conviction in Runes, he seems to remain confident that those who get involved early (and reasonably hodl) have the best chance to ride the wave of this emerging trend.
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