Interview with Alex Andryunin, Founder of Hedge Fund Gotbit:Everything You Need to Know About Launching a Meme coin Project

Alex Andryunin, founder of the Gotbit hedge fund, shares insights on launching a meme coin startup. How did Shark Cat reach a $400 million market cap in just two days? What mistakes should you avoid? How much can you earn from a meme coin project? Together with Alex, let’s answer these questions. We will highlight the most exciting points. 

Catch the full interview on our YouTube channel.

— Hi, Alex! What's the meme coin situation right now?

— Hi. Retail has got smarter. People don't want to buy tokens overloaded with venture capital funds anymore. For example, consider Wormhole, where the project only goes down after listing. Retail realises that venture capitalists have already taken all the profits from tokens. This is true for SUI, Aptos, Wormhole, and many others. Now, retail is looking for tokens that can be bought before anyone else. Meme coins provide that opportunity. 

— Give us an example, so our viewers understand the numbers we're talking about. 

— Our latest client is Shark Cat. It is a project without a logo, just a picture of a cat in a shark costume. In two days, the coin reached a capitalisation of $400 million. Some bought at $50k and saw $200k in tokens the next day.

Everyone loves cat memes 

— Such stories are appealing without a doubt. But it takes serious money. The picture may matter, but how much does it take for marketing?

— Shark Cat succeeded thanks to the Weave team and investors who raised the coin. The project didn't even have a chief developer. Social capital is more critical than financial. They had good KOLs, a strong concept. That's why the project raised so much. Reputation matters. 

— I learned everything I know about market making from your interview. You were the first to discuss this field in detail and educate people. Gotbit opened a meme coin incubation. The announcement immediately caught attention. Then, there were several problematic projects. Why don't you filter your clients?

— We made three mistakes. The first was the partnership with a project using a hacked Instagram. Kanye West was subscribed to one of his friends' Instagram accounts. People hacked it, renamed it, and deleted all the information. And they started pumping. The project had a lot of organic community, and the price grew three times, but then Kanye reported the hack, and 99% of the liquidity was gone. So, we have two such partnerships.

— How'd that happen?

— It is dangerous to lose our leadership in the meme coin sphere. If we stop announcing projects, we may lose a big case. For example, the Peng coin, which we announced with a capitalisation of $16 million, gained $250 million in a couple of weeks. Such cases are significant to us. People realise that 99.99% of meme coins are going to die. We have to make quick decisions, so new projects are constantly flowing.

— Your competitors DWF, are also working with meme coins but haven't announced most of it.

— They have a completely different model. Market makers often work this way: they take your tokens and trade them. For a small project, this is most regularly suicidal. For example, the DWF team recently worked with the #1 Influencer in the CIS region: Morgenstern. They launched a token on TON, but didn't even reach $10 million in capitalisation.

— Coins created by non crypto-native guys often fail. What do you think about that?

— Case indicates that the TON ecosystem can't provide enough liquidity. That's why Solana is so promising and attractive to developers: a whole backbone of degens knows there's money to be made. They support the market. CIS projects are generally less successful at launch. 

— Nevertheless. SOL project’s liquidity is falling. Can you achieve results on SOL with relatively small capital?

— I will make a counter-argument. Let’s take Shark Cat as an example again. Only after listing on Solana, it reached a capitalisation of $400 million in a couple of days. There were no more than 10 meme coins on Solana with such capitalisation. This is high-speed growth, and the project has such numbers without any listings on CEX. Usually, up to $10 million capitalisation, the main work is done on DEX, and beyond that, you need large platforms. In my experience, there are groups of whales behind such projects. However, there is a problem for the general audience: the market is becoming more demanding, and not every coin is raised like it used to. More projects are being launched, and more teams are appearing, so on average, launches are getting weaker.

—  How did Shark Cat achieve these numbers?

— Thanks to the people who have made large sums of money on Weave. The project went into Binance spot, and futures, they did a community takeover. 

— What is community takeover?

— Shark Cat initially launched with a community takeover model. It’s the process in which the original developer sold his coins and exited the project. The advantage of meme coins is fairness. If there were regular retail traders, they would follow the Shark Cat team's wallets, foul them, and earn 4,000 Xs each. 

— Many people try to start a meme coin project, but often it fails. People are under illusions about how it works. Let's walk through the roadmap of launching a successful meme coin.

— Right now, the most relevant platform is Pump.fun. It is a phenomenon on the Solana blockchain, where anyone can create a meme coin in 30 seconds with an automatic fair-launch*. It has its own DEX, where the token grows from zero, and when it reaches $60k, it is listed on the official Solana platform. Shark Cat was also launched on Pump.fun. 

 * — A fair launch is the process through which project creators provide all participants an equal opportunity to acquire an asset at the same price, time, and quantity. 

— Why choose this platform?

On DEX, professionals take most of the liquidity using sniping bots and other software that helps to buy tokens at the time of listing. That’s why most retail has moved to Pump.fun.

— So running on Pump.fun is a defense against snipers?

— Yes, there is transparency. When a developer lists a token, he prescribes how much he wants to buy supply. No one goes into that token if he bought more than 30%. Anyone can see the graph of the token and how many assets the developer controls. 

— Let's say we go the classic way: list the token, buy supply, and then go to the first launch. If you do it via fair launch, is it true that you can't move on without a community?

— It really depends on the team. We have a Gami project that went from $0 to $250 million and now trades with a $100 million market cap. ByBit took it on the spot. Developers bought only 10% of the supply and added significant liquidity to the pool, yet they still reached these impressive values.

— Invested in tokens?

— No, used SOLs. The classic launch option is 10 SOL and 10 for supply. They put 700 in at once. This project grew before our eyes.

— This might be the exception to the rule. I know the Shiba Inu case, where there was a lot of supply from the start. Does it help at the start?

— You don't keep supply to yourself. Instead, you don't let other market professionals buy at a meager price. You need to protect the project from whales or snipers. A professional will never hold your token after 1000 X's. The logic is simple: sniped, killed the token, sold it. Everyone sees the red candle, and the project dies. Protecting your token from the professionals and controlling the supply are essential. Usually, it is burned or given away as Airdrops. 

— How can I defend against snipers?

— I won't tell you how we work because we are market leaders with cutting-edge solutions. But I can say that our clients get control over the supply at the start. We guarantee that other professionals will be unable to access the token immediately.

— Okay, we've launched the meme, created the first social, and have listings and DEXs. We have $500k. How much should we invest in the first active phase?

— With $500k, the best strategy is to test hypotheses. Allocate $10,000 to launch a meme and test it. Try to gain virality to attract an organic audience. In the first days, meme coin should survive without KOLs and marketing. You need to buy the supply and wait to see if there is an organic audience with DEX. 

— How much trading volume to expect?

— $1 million. The average check is quite different: it is $1,000 in the USA. So it is $50 for the CIS. You need to use KOLs minimally and not launch broad marketing at once. For the audience, it may look like a rug pool. People initially like good projects. For this, you need minimal communication channels.

— Getting $1 million in the first few days is tough.

— $1 million in volume, not total. It's not that much on Solana.

— How many makers do you need?

— 2000. A big mistake teams make is putting everything into marketing and trying to cover everything. We explain that spending all the budget on a first project concept is bad. You require a small budget to test concepts. If you see signs of organics – focus on this project.

— How do you do the Hypothesis Testing?

— It's better to make 10–20 tests with different memes. I would use $200k in tests from the first $500k. With a small budget, try to cover as many hypotheses as possible. The meme market right now is a competition of concepts, not complex development. Whoever makes the most creative product will win.

— Okay, we're up and running. We've got some organics coming in. What should we do next?

— Discard other tokens and focus. Don’t spend your budget on trading. You already have the supply; you only work with it. Do a KOLs round and more listings based on capitalisation. Allocate a 25% split at each stage. Use tokens to attract KOLs. The only thing worth spending on is buying a good website. The average price is ~$5000. Next, pay for listings on CEX. They will pay back. Here is a roadmap: MEXC, Gate, KuCoin, and ByBit.

— How much to pay KOL's?

— Up to 50% is OK. 

— How do you deal with influencers who sell the token immediately?

— You need to be good at managing the KOL network. Usually, there are professional teams. I recommend a Zero-stage team. They influence KOLs and can blacklist them, and then they will not get the following projects.  It is very painful. 

— Okay, let's move on. What do we do next if we can't pass the $20 million barrier?

— People may be tired of the narrative. Perhaps there was a problem at launch, or exchanges do not want to list the token. You need to assess the situation and, if possible, take 1-2 million and start a new project.

— You often say listings are big news for a meme coin project. Is it related to the influx of traffic, or does it help strengthen a community? 

— The exchange is a new funnel for the new users. Let's say that you're on KuCoin. Many KOLs on Twitter work only with KuCoin and Binance so that you can attract new Influencers. This gives you a new audience.

— What does your ideal roadmap on listings for meme coin look like?

— You see that the project has an organic audience. First, buy a listing on MEXC. You will get a listing in 4–5 days. Pick up the nearest date. Then, BingX, as a CIS community is the most active participant in this exchange. Next is Gate. These three exchanges are easy to collect. Next will be more challenging: ByBit futures or KuCoin spot, or ByBit spot. The exchanges don't want to list meme coins on the spot. For them, listing is about bringing in new users, not making money.

— You said launching a meme coin startup takes between $700k and $1 million. I see that your roadmap budgets are smaller. What has changed?

— The budget is needed first and foremost for testing. If there are no organics, we move on to the next one. One million dollars is an excessive budget, but I take into account the risks.

— How many projects have you worked with?

— Over 1,000. A quarter are still alive. Each team has several meme coins, with an average of up to 5 projects per team.

— What blockchains?

— 95% on Solana, a little on Base and Avalanche.

— Where are team members located?

— More than half are Western, English-speaking countries. 20% — Russian-speaking teams. About 30% are Asian.

— Who performs better?

— Western teams. They understand marketing and growing virality better. The American marketing is the strongest in the world.

— If you compare yield and % of successful launches, which is better: running a meme or buying sniping software?

— Meme coin. The market of snipers on Solana is consolidated: there are 4 teams in total, and only one is public — PepperMints. Subscription to their software costs $150k. In addition, you need to connect 8 nodes. One node costs $6k. In the end, mistakes and lost money are always behind the profit.

— To conclude, speaking of iconic projects. Let's say Pepe. What level of investment do you think such projects have?

— There are tens of millions of dollars behind such projects. Usually, whales are connected, competently timed, and launched.

— In your opinion, does luck often affect a launch?

— Very common. There are lots of variables, including the human factor. That's what hypotheses are for. 

— Thanks for the interview!

Conclusion

The interview with Alex gives a valuable professional perspective on launching and promoting meme coin projects. Gotbit has experience with over 1,000 projects, emphasizing the importance of a viral concept and a smooth launch. Success in the meme coin market relies on avoiding professionals and minimizing the influence of whales and snipers.

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