How to Find 100x Gems: 5 Strategies

You might assume it’s just a clickbait title, but I assure you, it’s not.

The current meta is 100x gem hunting. Even if the market is down for now, it will come back.

However, I believe that many are approaching it … in a dumb way. Sending SOL to an influencer’s address in hopes of striking it rich is possibly riskier than standard gambling.

Even casinos have clearer rules of the game.

I don’t think it would be fair to talk about a 100x strategy without having tried it myself.

Guess what? I’ve actually 100xed my portfolio since I stopped using fiat to buy more crypto in March 2020. Since then, I rotated from one crypto asset to another and earned through airdrops, without investing a single USD for 4 years now.

But I hear you! You’re likely here aiming to make a 100x in a single trade. I’d like to offer some strategies that could increase your chances rather than just blindly following a random influencer.

I’ve also sought tip from some prominent KOLs: Crypto Nova, Crypto Koryo and Sandra (who just left Nansen to join Kaito AI) who shared their strategies.

But first, check out the farms of the week.

Farms of the Week:

• Swell: Eherfi token is out and referees got extra points. Now, the time for SWELL token soon. Use my referral to mint rswETH and get 2x the points with my link here.
  

• StackingDAO: Bitcoin halving is a month away and Stacks ecosystem tokens are already pumping. A beta play is liquid staking of Stacks (STX).

Strategy is simple: deposit some STX and wait for airdrop to come. Use my referral link here to earn me more points.

• FlashTrade: Flash trade allows trading gold, silver, FOREX, and crypto. Underfarmed protocol on Solana.

Their unique feature are dynamic NFTs that evolve based on your trading history. No token yet. Farm airdrop 5% cheaper with my referral link.

• Nostra: lend, borrow, and trade on Starknet. I’m bullish because the Cairo development language restricts Aave and other leading lending protocols from deploying on Starknet.

This puts Nostra (or zkLend) as the primary liquidity hub on Starknet. Farm 5% points with my referral.

Disclaimer: This blog is for informational and research purposes only, not financial advice. Opinions are my own. Conduct your own research. I accept no liability for any losses or damages. Crypto investments are volatile and at your own risk.

Nansen - Token Screener for Smart Money

Low-cap projects, potentially those with a market cap lower than $10M, are reasonable bets for a fast(er) 100x.

The problem is finding them early. But how?

Influencers like to shill their own picks, but there’s always more than meets the eye: KOL are paid to promote, or they buy first to dump on you later.

I believe making decisions based on on-chain data is one of the best ways to start.

Fortunately, there is an easy strategy using Nansen to find early-stage low caps that already have some traction.

Unfortunately, you’ll need to pay 99 USD per month for the “Pioneer” subscription. Not too much if you are serious at on-chain trading.

My favorite Nansen strategy is using Token Screener to find newly deployed tokens (7 to 14 days) that are being bought by Smart Money.

Head to Token Paradise, scroll to Token Screener, and choose “On-chain Metrics”. Sort by No of smart holders, txs, FDV or anything you like.

In the screenshot below, we find tokens deployed within 7 days. I like seeing the number of holders growing with a decent amount of txs.

You can see that most of these are low caps as low as $559k FDV for ISHI.

At this stage it’s still hard to know which one will go 100x, so further analysis is needed.

MDAI, for example, is the first token on the list. Find it on Coingecko, Twitter, check their website and judge for yourself if it’s worth paying attention to. MindAI “unlocks the power of your personal assistant with Mind AI”.

It’s basically ChatGPT on Telegram.

AI? Sounds sexy but it might be just gibberish to ride the AI trend, so I don’t endorse it, but simple using it as an example. It’s also up by 91% today. Not bad.

You’ll also need to check token holder concentration, and if smart money is buying or selling. MDAI has 21% deposited in Uniswap LP pool, with 28% staked, but whales still hold a significant amount of tokens.

Time to ape in? Not so fast.

Check the community vibe on Discord/Telegram, engagement on X, check who from your X circle are following it, who are the investors, what’s the unlock schedule, and what’s the token utility.

Not easy!

Next, you need to repeat this process for all the other tokens in the list before deciding where to ape.

My personal experience with trading this way has been mixed. I’ve made more gains than losses, but I have yet to achieve a 100x return.

To be frank, I spend more time to creating content and looking for new airdrops than chasing after 100x tokens. But I believe Nansen’s Token Paradise offers better chances than following KOL advice on X.

Speaking of which….

Kaito - Find Trending Narratives, Smart Following, Token Mindshare, and More.

Kaito is my latest favorite toy. I use it to track market sentiment, identify trending narratives, discover top threads, transcribe podcasts, and more.

For instance, it scans through Twitter posts to identify tokens gaining traction compared to others.

Kaito AI then assesses sentiment (bullish or bearish), engagement on X, and even Discord. It combines information from various online sources to summarize protocol features and updates, saving me time of checking documentation, Discord, X, DAO, and more.

In the two screenshots above, you can see PRIME dominating the Token Mindshare. Sentiment analysis turned very bullish in the past week. But is it worth apeing in?

More due diligence is needed: tokenomics, unlocks, market cap, and much more! I am actually preparing a post on what I look in tokenomics, so make sure to subscribe.

Subscribe

One of the simplest ways to find alpha is through Smart Following.

Kaito’s “smart accounts” are categorized into Mega Brains (I’m part of it too, lol) and “Alpha Hunters.”

I typically filter by 7Days to see which accounts the Alpha hunters have recently followed and then analyze if any particular project grabs my attention. Usually, these projects do not have tokens yet, providing time to prepare for the token launch.

I asked Sandra, who is identified by Kaito as Alpha Hunter. She just left Nansen to join Kaito AI.

She said finding an 100x is “usually a mix of studying the exhaustion of one narrative, and then using on-chain to support my thesis of whether certain “smart” wallets are shifting their tokens to other narrative baskets”

Usually, you can tell also by looking at offchain data, which is where Kaito comes into play, we have something called our mindshare analysis to see how much a token is being talked about, when a token gains peak mindshare, this is a sign of “peak mania” for X token, which typically also signals a local top.

I agree that this off-chain and on-chain approach is the way to go. If you find a token that have bullish on/off-chain data, you might give it a go.

The problem: Kaito isn’t cheap. The Elite package with Smart Following costs $833 per month. If you decide to use it, make sure to use my ref link so we both get credits to use for future subscription discounts.

Link here: https://portal.kaito.ai/auth/entry?referralCode=1D2A7ABD

Note: This is not a sponsored post by Kaito or Nansen. I use both of them myself and will only get credits if you use my referral.

Yet, my another strategy is free.

Zero-to-one Innovation Tokens

This is my favorite strategy.

Once in a while a token appears that is so unique and different, that it changes the trajectory of the industry. The originality of tokenomics can push the industry forward and jump-start a new sector within crypto.

Being early at finding an ingenious Zero to One token will leave you perplexed at first but can bring nice gains if you act on it early.

Noticing the zero-to-one innovation might seem simple, but it’s harder due to our own biases.

When the new hot thing appears, it might get little to no interest from the community. It might even be totally dismissed by the crypto community as not worthy of any attention.

That’s why having an open mind, and willing to try every new hot and especially controversial thing, boosts your chances to find an 100x asset.

I say “asset” because it might not be a token. NFTs are the most prominent 0-to-1 innovation with Punks and BAYC being the most successful examples.

Other assets that I consider 0-to-1 innovation in tokenomics were Ampleforth, Olympus DAO, Compound Finance COMP, Curve’s CRV, Yearn Finance’s YFI, Nexus’ NXM, and Synthetix SNX. Why? Check the blog post below.

Zero to One in DeFi Tokenomics: Top 7 Innovative Tokens

IGNAS | DEFI RESEARCH

·

2023年1月24日

Read full story

These 0-to-1 innovations often lead to multiple copycat project that jump on the trend. But I believe the 100x will come from the original protocol.

How to find the 0-to-1 innovation:

• Look for technical innovation. Something that hasn’t existed before.
• Look for the community: are there people who care about it? A big group of haters is also a good sign
• Look for confusion: new things are confusing because of 1) technical innovation 2) challenging preconceived ideas/narratives

The latest example of 0-to-1 innovation is Ordinals. NFTs and memecoins on trading were considered impossible just a few months ago.

Now, I actually made close to 100x thanks to Ordinals. I bought Nodemonke for 0.03 and it now trades at 0.75 BTC (25x). But I got multiple airdrops for holding it, like RSIC, Runestone and many.

I think the next 100x tokens will come from Rune protocol when it launches after bitcoin halving. Are you ready to do what it takes to catch the 100x wave? Will you study Bitcoin ecosystem, how Rune protocols work etc.?

If you really want to get the 100x without gambling, you’ll need to put effort.

Public sales - Brought to You by Crypto Nova

Crypto Nova got me into public token sales. I never actually bothered to buy ICOs because it requires a lot of effort to get whitelisted. And allocations are usually small.

But she changed my perception of token sales. Here’s what she had to say:

In a full raging bull there’s nothing better [than token sales].

Doesn’t mean it’s always easy to get in for retail though. They can (mostly through launchpads) but they still kinda “have to fight for it”. But profitability wise? There’s no second best.

It’s because there are so sell or buy walls on the market yet. No fair valuation. It’s tough seeing something pump 500% in a day on the market (they have to eat these sell limit order walls to get through it).

Token sales however? They can launch 1000% in a day.

Today most of my recent experiences (raging bull situation. Matters a lot!) even launched at 4000-5000% compared to token sale price. (x40-x50).

However, that doesn’t mean instant x40 profit. There’s vesting attached to that. But mostly public has a 25-50% tge [token generation event] or sometimes even 100% tge thing. But not always.

But if they have a 25% tge that would still mean a 10x on their initial investment on a 40x launch. This can be less or more for the other unlocks (sometimes token effectively even go up more.

But overall: there’s no second best (still have to due diligence on good ones ofcourse. Also, not all token sales are cheap. Which is something many would expect)

I asked her for details on how to participate, the platforms to use, and which tokens to invest in. She shared three detailed threads.

1. How to participate in token sales (including wallet guide). Click on the picture to read the thread.
   
2. How to spot good token sales (evaluating these to know if they actually will be good).

1. Which launchpads to use.

Nova recommends “1-2 launchpads with NO requirement to combine with 1-2 WITH a requirement to raise your chances.”

She believes “CoinList is the best free launchpad period. Daomaker lately is the best “paid” launchpad (not exactly paid since token holding requirement can also be a good investment in a bull market).”

When it comes to Fjord Foundry (which I used because everyone can participate), Nova said it’s “free for all. Everyone that wants in? Well they literally are in. So token sales don’t perform nearly as well as others. It isn’t all bad though. Performance might be a lot worse BUT well at least everyone can get in (no bad luck or lottery).”

So, the best token sale platforms for 100x might be the ones that require you to put more effort.

Very logical reason for that: The reason why token sales pump so much on launch is the same reason why it also sucks for them. Not everyone can participate.

It sucks but it’s SUPER bullish. Price valuation post launch is because of DEMAND. Not everyone can participate = they HAVE TO market buy if they want in. - Crypto Nova

Memelords Dune Dashboard - Brought by Crypto Koryo

I wanted to offer you a free dashboard (since Nansen and Kaito are both paid) and Crypto Koryo is a master of Dune dashboards. He actually built a Memelord Dune dashboard for your degen purposes.

Here’s what he had to say on using his dashboard.

What we call “crypto” is now a very big market and there are many niches within crypto that allow you to make money. Airdrops, yield farming, trading etc. But undoublty the 100x’s only come from trading. But they also belong to a very small niche of trading.

It’s pretty easy to make a 2x-10x’s on a relatively long timeframe trading crypto. But if you are really looking for 100x, you have to narrow down the assets you trade.

1. Market cap: The market cap is a great easy indicator of how high a token can go. Based on CoinMarketCap, there are currently less than 100 assets with a market cap above $1 billion. $10M * 100 = $1B \

Therefore, if you want those 100x, you need to go for projects that have less than $100M in market cap.

1. Project age: It’s well known that newer projects tend to perform better. The new shiny object that CT is talking about and got all the attention can easily pull a >20x. Focus on projects that have listed in the last 12/6/3 months. It’s extremely rare to see older projects pull a >20x. If the project was good, it should be already priced in, and if it’s not, it won’t do a 100x.
2. Narrative: Only few narratives have the potential do 100x. A Dex/option/oracle project will probably never do a 100x. Looking at my narratives dashboard, and based on past data, I’d say in 2024, to do a 100x, you should only focus on memes and AI tokens.

You are looking for the next PEPE, WIF, TAO, etc.

1. It doesn’t matter what projects you find interesting, if at some point, the majority doesn’t think the same, price will not go up.
2. It matters a lot to be early. And this means being a contrarian. Seeing a potential trend before others.
3. Attention economy: A 100x happens when you are early into something and you are part of a minority group that think this token will go up. You need to find that minority group that thinks like you and is also looking for a 100x. But you shouldn’t look for them on telegram/discord groups and you don’t even need to talk to them.

So practically speaking, how to take action on points 1 to 6?

Using my Memelords dashboard:

https://dune.com/cryptokoryo/memelords

The tables ‘New Shiny Degen Tokens Recently Traded by Degens’

and ‘Top 100 Most traded degen tokens by Meme traders - Last 2 weeks’ are the only two places you need to look.

The answer to your 100x is within those two tables. These two tables integrate all points 1/ to 6/.

To conclude, remember that:

1. You might buy early the next 100x. But if you always sell at 5x, you will never make a 100x.
2. Many of those you buy for a 100x will go to 0. Manage your risks. You are buying extremely risky assets. Never put 20% of your portfolio on any of them. 10% might be better.
3. This is the only niche you need to be in. Ignore everything else. Ignore CT. Focus on this, iterate, improve and be patient. It works!

Once you start to get good at trading memes, you might want to start exploring telegram sniper bots like Maestro and Banana where you could be really early and it would be easier to do a 100x (but with a lower win rate). And if you are technical, you can go on mev sandwich route like jaredsubway.eth

Hope you liked his dashboard.

Airdrops - But Not All!

Finally, Airdrop is such an obvious one, that I won’t keep this long.

But I want to emphasize two kinds of airdrops:

• Liquidity mining airdrops
• Participation based airdrops

You must know that I am bullish on Liquid Restaked Tokens. But you won’t score high airdrops if you don’t have capital (ETH) to stake.

Thus, LRT might not be the best for you.

Instead, I would look for participation-based airdrops where even a small amount of capital qualifies you for large allocation.

Those include bridges (LayerZero and the like), oracles, L1s or L2s, playing out with testnets and actively participating at the early stage of a protocol to receive “early member” NFT.

It requires effort and consistency, but if you are starting with a small portfolio, airdrops are your way to make it.

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [ignasdefi], All copyrights belong to the original author [IGNAS | DEFI RESEARCH]. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.