How to Trade Memecoins: Interview with a Full-Time Degen
For the past few months, I’ve been working in stealth mode on a big upcoming project: Use Case Magazine. It’s a new, print-first, high-end publication focused on cryptocurrency applications. You can sign up here to get more information.
For the first issue of Use Case, coming in the Fall of this year, I was invited to write a feature on the mercenary, zero-sum world of memecoin trading. As part of that project, I interviewed Mr. Krabs, a full-time (pseudonymous) crypto trader. He’s also the creator of a small, friendly trading group called The Krusty Krab (also not its real name).
We talked at length about the tactics of memecoin trading - which, lest we forget, is now officially legal under the Trump SEC.
To be clear, I think that’s a very bad thing, socially speaking - though not much worse than the spreading legalization of gambling, since that’s what memecoin trading ultimately is.
But as another one of my interview subjects put it, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to make money?”
I’ve personally been accused of being “allergic to the bag,” so that resonated with me. Memecoin trading is incredibly high-risk, and success depends on a very strange set of skills. But every once in a while, there’s just free money sitting around.
The interview covers:
Tactics, Tools, and Metrics for trading memecoins – including how to judge if they’re being manipulated.
A real trader’s thoughts on Murad Mahmudov’s “Cults” thesis.
Exactly how Hayden Davis and the $Libra launch team ripped off an entire country.
What type of people trade memecoins?
Trading the $Trump memecoin, and what made it an “immaculate conception.”
Why you should never try to snipe a launch you got early intel about.
“The loser thing to do is follow a cult mentality. Like, I’m doubling down on this thing, I’m a holder, this is a community, this is a cult, etc., etc.
Those are all the suckers.” - Mr. Krabs
What is your background in finance or the like? How did you get into trading?
I’m a software developer by profession. About 2020-2021, I got into crypto, and as a beginner got burned for the first two or three years. In 2023, I started trading on-chain, on Base and Arbitrum. The tail end of 2023 is when the memecoin meta blew up, and I got into it, around October, November, December.
Right now [in mid-2025], the game is hyperoptimized, you have a lot of advanced players using methods to trick people. But early on, it wasn’t as hyperoptimized, and it was a bit easier. Late 2023 to early 2024 was really great. People didn’t have that much edge, and this was also pre Pump.Fun.
You’ve seen that stupid man vs. gorilla meme all over Twitter. There was a coin for that.
Like any game, though, people get better at extraction. With how easy it is to launch coins, it made the proliferation so much easier, and diluted the capital into many many different coins. It’s much harder for a coin to go to an 8-9 fig market cap. Before that, capital was concentrated in fewer coins.
In late 2023 and early 2024, when memecoins were really hot, there was a lot of distaste for it among the more tech focused, builder-focused individuals. So I didn’t want to spam more mainstream group chats, but we needed an outlet for this, so I created The Krusty Krab, for friends who were curious but not entirely degenerate.
I don’t post there myself, because there are a lot of ways to get burned, and I don’t want to lead anyone into more risk than they can handle. The people I interact with in day to day memecoin trading have a much higher risk tolerance than my friends in the channel – they just don’t know the game like I do in some sense.
The Krusty Krab is much, much much more casual.
What kind of people are involved in active memecoin trading?
People doing it with a lot of focus and attention, worldwide I would put it at maybe five figures of people. No more than 100,000 people maybe. It’s really hard to get a sense what the actual numbers are. Relative to crypto participants, it might be no more than 20% of people.
Are there people who are trading a lot but *don’t* understand the real game?
In general, I think people have a base understanding of how ephemeral it all is. But it gets distorted the higher a token goes. It’s like, “Oh wow, look at this.”
The people who are less experienced forget how ephemeral things are, so they get roped into buying something high. The more experienced people … it actually pushes them to sell more aggressively.
What are the tactics of trading memecoins, as opposed to other tokens, or other assets?
You have Pump.fun, right, which has a bonding curve. When things graduate [to the market cap threshold], they get more attention and they’re bonded. If you look at the numbers, it’s not worth my time to be looking at things that are pre-bonded. If you have 10,000 coins being created a day, 9,950 don’t make it past the curve and 50 do.
If volume is below market cap, though, that’s a sign that a lot of supply is concentrated, usually.
Recently I’ve shifted to being even more conservative. What am I being paid for here? I’m being paid for catching overarching trends very, very early. It sounds simple, but it’s easier said than done. I look at things that are graduated only, things that have strong overarching trends.
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