Casual Chat About Investment, Funds, and Cryptocurrency

“Chatting About Investment, Funds, and Crypto”

#Funds #curator

Starting early in the morning, let’s have a casual chat about funds. https://t.co/6dSNPF9P1P

In my pinned article, I wrote that in 2021 I was still a product manager. Later, I got involved in DeFi and became an institutional fund manager. Eventually, I went solo (you can call it freelance investing if you like).

Since then, over the past two years, I’ve also tried some other things, like being an on-chain fund manager (DeFi Curator). But all of these basically wrapped up by the end of 2025. Why? I’ll explain later.

Let’s go back to the original tweet about funds.

An older brother who helped me early on often sent me decks for fundraising. Of course, I’ve also seen various decks from other sources.

Unfortunately, out of nearly a hundred materials I’ve reviewed over the years, I could tell at a glance they were all junk, and I’ve never once received a solid investment recommendation. A somewhat blunt conclusion: any fund that publicly raises money, by my standards, is all junk.

How should an outsider simply understand financial institutions? There are really only two roles.

One is the entity that seeks external funding—brands, star fund managers, institutions. All the high-end, outward-facing stuff you see is just to attract more money.

The other role is the one managing that money—what I call the junk. Their strategies are usually copied from others, choosing a good time cycle, producing some good simulated data, and then letting the fundraising role do the work.

It’s not that they lack ability; it’s just that these things aren’t visible from the data, and can’t be linked. Especially the most important risk control capabilities.

Junk is junk, but it also involves information and technical barriers. It seems like a reasonable model. But in reality, it’s not.

Active funds are easy to understand—gamblers. Using investors’ money to bet, sharing the winnings if they win, and losing only their own capital if they lose.

That’s human nature. When returns mainly come from sharing profits and there’s no downside protection, betting is inevitable—no exceptions.

Passive, arbitrage funds, earn management fees. But the risk remains huge because most arbitrage teams can’t dodge black swans, their skills are insufficient, and black swans happen every year.

I’ve also invested in others, with similar results—blown up by overconfidence. It’s quite funny when you think about it. 😂

Let’s talk about DeFi Curator.

Starting this side gig, there are two motivations: one is to generate some passive income; the other is to see if the bull market can help scale it up.

We have an advantage in doing this. Because we are among the most knowledgeable teams in DeFi and risk control (let’s say one of the top), understanding exactly where the risks lie, making every black swan a profit opportunity.

Plus, some friends are willing to help, so we got it up and running quickly.

Initially, I had a beautiful vision: keep all decision details transparent, avoid conflicts of interest, openly review code with multiple parties, and even if something goes wrong, we can hold our heads high.

Before 1011, our portfolio was among the highest-yielding. If something went wrong, we would definitely exit faster than others, minimizing losses.

After 1011, I felt the market was off, so I reviewed the portfolio again. Removed assets that everyone was investing in but we couldn’t practically control or immediately manage risks through code.

Soon after, everyone knows what happened—the stablecoins we invested in for DeFi Curator blew up, but we were unaffected. The so-called established institutions are just amateurs.

At the same time, I also realized that my idealistic vision was just wishful thinking. Being fair and transparent is ultimately worthless—no one will understand you just because you’re honest.

People invest in you only because you haven’t lost money.

Conversely, as long as you don’t lose money, it doesn’t matter if you’re evil, corrupt, or fake.

The potential risk of others losing money is a risk I don’t want to bear. Even if legally innocent, there are risks outside the law.

Maintaining a loose structure reduces pressure during bad market times, which is also good.

A few related thoughts at the end:

1. I believe non-professionals’ understanding of investing shouldn’t exceed about 10% of their own money and energy. It’s better to focus on your main career.

Or if you plan to specialize in this field, you need to understand every detail. From your learning experience, do you have such success stories or innate talent?

2. I’ve said many times that crypto has a huge value: it disenchants people from investing. In every aspect, inside and out. No other industry allows you to understand, engage with, and practically operate at such a deep level of the underlying affairs.

3. I love reviewing industry experts’ retrospectives—this is also a huge value of crypto. Some outsiders don’t understand what’s so interesting about these bragging stories. What I don’t get is, how come these things are free to read? Truly kind-hearted people. (Including this article)