Exclusive interview with Hurun Rich List Wang Mingliu: When mining is no longer lucrative, how can we achieve a stable landing?

Text | Huang Xuejiao Editor | Hao Fangzhou

Produced by | Odaily Planet Daily (ID: o-daily)

Wang Mingliu has many labels:

Between 2008 and 2014, Wang Mingliu, who focused on the primary market, successfully participated in a series of unicorn projects such as ZhongAn Insurance and Uber.

In 2017, Wang Mingliu founded Maoqiu Technology, a blockchain infrastructure service provider. In 2018, it received tens of millions of US dollars in Series A financing led by Tsinghua Tongfang’s Tongfang Houchi Capital, iResearch Capital, and Changjiang Financial Holdings.

Yesterday (October 20), Wang Mingliu was listed on the "2020 Hurun Rich List" with a net worth of 10.5 billion yuan. In the blockchain field, he is second only to Binance's Zhao Changpeng (21 billion) and Bitmain's Zhan Ketuan (11 billion).

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From an outstanding investor to a successful entrepreneur, from a 80s tycoon to a millionaire mine owner, these identities are wonderfully integrated in Wang Mingliu.

In his early years, Wang Mingliu studied in the United States and Canada and made his first fortune in real estate development in Vancouver. After returning to China, Wang Mingliu successively joined the world's top investment banks Blackstone and Citibank, becoming the youngest employee of Citibank with president-level authority.

After that, Wang Mingliu started his investment and entrepreneurial career. After investing in the shared toys project, Wang Mingliu learned about blockchain and its computing infrastructure through investing in Bitcoin.

Relying on his previous investment experience, Wang Mingliu quickly sensed the opportunity in this emerging industry, and Maoqiu came into being.

After three years of development, Maoqiu has grown into a company with 400 employees. The supercomputing service centers it manages are spread across Sichuan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other places, with a total installed capacity of over 500,000 units and an electricity load of nearly one million kilowatt-hours.

Despite this, Maoqiu Technology is still a low-key and mysterious company in the industry. People can see its investment advertisements, but rarely hear about anyone using its hosting services. This is related to its product positioning for corporate customers and high-net-worth individuals.

Recently, Odaily Planet Daily had an in-depth conversation with this "million-load mine owner" and "long-term Bitcoin investor."

Like other big miners, Wang Mingliu is rich but low-key, rational in his investments, and a long-termist.

During the conversation, Wang Mingliu introduced his own methods of insight into the code of wealth, shared his principles of investment, entrepreneurship and wealth management, and also discussed the evolution and solutions of the mining industry over the past three years.

Regarding the future of Bitcoin, he asserted in a positive tone: "The current macroeconomic situation is peaceful for the development of Bitcoin. There are no negative factors. It is only a matter of time before the price rises."

Why is he so sure? Where will the next "wealth code" appear? Let's read on.

Investing in Uber: Not Just Having Money Invests in It

Odaily Planet Daily Q1: You are a very successful investor outside the blockchain circle. The star projects you have invested in include ZhongAn Insurance, Uber, etc. Can you introduce the opportunities for you to invest in these projects?

Wang Mingliu: After returning to China in 2008, I have always paid close attention to VC and PE. I have some personal wealth, so I have invested in domestic first-tier funds such as CDH, Sailing, and ZhenFund as an LP. They will give quotas to popular projects in the market to large LPs, but individual investors cannot invest just because they have money.

Whether investing in ZhongAn or Uber, they all saw the trend of the Internet transforming traditional businesses, so they just went with the flow.

Odaily Planet Daily Q2.1: You just mentioned trends. I would like to ask what your investment preferences are?

Wang Mingliu: I am optimistic about the radical type.

For people like me, our network of contacts, resume and vision may be slightly wider than others, so our investment options should be broader than those of ordinary people.

Most ordinary people invest in financial products, but I don’t need to do that. So I must be more adventurous and invest mostly in equity.

Then, when choosing a project, there are several principles that I will believe in. The first is to choose the field. Choosing the right track means choosing the right trend. The second is to look at the leading companies in the track. Often, the top two companies in the subdivided track will be those that can go public in the later stage. The other is to look at the team's background, original intention, and comprehensive capabilities.

Odaily Planet Daily Q2.2: Do you invest by yourself or with a team?

Wang Mingliu: This is why I choose the leading PE and VC institutions. They can bring you a lot of resources and professionalism that you don’t have otherwise.

Often the more powerful a company or team is, the more they want to find powerful investment institutions. Therefore, the more famous the institution is, the more good projects it can attract. This is a virtuous circle.

In addition to the channel advantage, the due diligence team of the leading institutions is also very professional. I also use the opinions of their due diligence team as the main reference for investment, and then based on the materials obtained from their DD, my team and I will conduct a secondary digestion and further investigation and demonstration.

In fact, one of the important methodologies I use to do things is to mobilize top talents and resources to help me do things. As the saying goes, every profession has its own specialties. When you cannot be proficient in everything, how to find such people and resources for your own use is enough.

Odaily Planet Daily Q3: I saw that you talked about your feeling before, that the essence of business is to gain benefits through information asymmetry. I really want to know, when you see an opportunity, how do you judge whether it is an opportunity, and whether more people and more money will pour in in the future, rather than you being the one to take over?

Wang Mingliu: Let me talk about it from my own experience. Before 2008, I studied in Vancouver, Canada, and I had some knowledge of the local real estate market. Then I saw that the strong demand of Chinese people to buy houses in the local area was not fully met, which was something that local real estate developers did not realize. To put it bluntly, this is a typical information asymmetry. I know Chinese people better than they do, and I also know the local market better than most Chinese people who want to buy houses in Vancouver.

Specifically, in 2006, after nearly 30 years of reform and opening up, China's economic strength and people's wealth had risen several levels, and a trend of studying abroad or immigrating overseas was gradually emerging.

However, they often cannot buy or build the house they want overseas. If they want to build a house, they need to have a thorough understanding of local policies, land transaction procedures and construction standards.

When it comes to buying, people don’t like to buy second-hand houses that have been built for decades. They all want to buy new houses, and they attach great importance to whether they have land ownership.

So in response to these needs, we set up a company to acquire land and replan the project.

When acquiring the land, we also fully considered the requirements of the Chinese people, such as whether it is close to the school. This is called "school district housing" in China, and there was no such concept abroad before; there is also the supporting facilities around the community, whether there are Chinese supermarkets, Chinese restaurants, etc.; the design will also fully meet the Chinese people's needs for living habits such as sitting north and facing south.

In this way, we became the first batch of real estate developers in Canada targeting Chinese people. So, where you know more than others, there are often opportunities.

Odaily Planet Daily Q4: What is your overall return on investment so far?

Wang Mingliu: This thing has highs and lows. On average, it is definitely very high, because I entered the market very early. I started investing in PE and VC in 2008, and I made a lot of money on the GEM in 2009. Later, I bought and sold Bitcoin and built a mining farm.

Owning a mine with a capacity of one million: “This business is great”

Odaily Planet Daily Q5: After several years of investment career, you changed your identity again and devoted yourself to the construction of the industry as an entrepreneur. What are the driving factors behind this transformation?

Wang Mingliu: In recent years, we have mainly focused on two areas. One is game production; the other is a blockchain infrastructure service provider, which is commonly known as a "mine". Today I will talk about the second item in detail.

As mentioned before, I entered this field by investing in Bitcoin. At the beginning of 2016, I bought millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin as a basket for personal asset allocation. I remember the price was more than 400 US dollars at that time. Now we all know that Bitcoin had entered the rising channel of the bull market cycle at that time. Bitcoin kept rising, especially after 2017, the money-making effect became higher and higher. I also started to pay attention to this industry from then on.

After investing in the secondary market, I want to continue to enter the primary market. Take the domestic capital market as an example. Which one has a higher chance of losing money, investing in the secondary market or the primary and a half market? The answer is obvious, it must be the secondary market. Then, investing in the primary and a half market or being an original shareholder of a company, which one has a higher chance of losing money? The answer must be the former, right?

The same is true for the blockchain industry. Investing in mining is worse than speculating in cryptocurrencies, and investing in mining is worse than mining by yourself. So in 2017, I started buying mining machines and looking for electricity to build a mining farm.

I have to say something about building a mining farm. I first bought mining machines and put them in other people's mining farms, but later I thought it would be more economical to have my own mining farm, because mining is a competition among peers, and unlike now, most people used the same mining machine (Ant S9), and the power consumption of miners of the same size was almost the same. So what factor determines who can make more money? It is the price of electricity.

So we started to look upstream for cheap, stable and controllable electricity. I am from Sichuan, and the local area has a lot of abandoned hydropower/redundant electricity, which attracts a lot of mining farms. It is also known as the "Mining Capital" in the industry. We quickly won the first power resource. At that time, we didn't have much experience, so we accidentally got too much, so we also called a friend to come over to manage it, and there was still some spare power.

By the second half of 2017, Bitcoin was gradually reaching the peak of the bull market. We were making a lot of money whether we kept our machines running or sold them, and the remaining mining positions were quickly sold out.

The market changed too fast in those months. In Q1-Q2 of 2018, mainstream digital crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum fell all the way. The mined coins were becoming less and less valuable, but the mining farms that had not taken it seriously at first actually made money.

At that time, there were few mining farms, and customers were required to pay one month’s deposit before signing the contract. A one-year hosting service contract was signed, and the electricity price was also fixed, so short-term fluctuations in the currency price would basically not affect it. It can be said to be the only "anti-fragile" investment product in this system.

In the second half of 2018, the price of coins continued to fall, breaking through the shutdown price of the mining machines. The customers' machines worth tens of thousands of dollars basically could not mine. I told them that they would easily break down if you shut them down and restart them, and some customers said then just use them to mine.

To be honest, when everyone was at their worst, we were doing relatively well, because I was using the cheapest mining machines, electricity prices, and lower network computing power to mine and hoard coins. At that time, I also bought a lot of disposal machines at very low prices, and then the flood season and the small bull market came.

So I think the mining farm business is very good, and it can be said to be very profitable. This also laid the foundation for Maoqiu to engage in the mining farm hosting business.

Odaily Planet Daily Q6: Can you give us a brief introduction to the types of Maoqiu’s current mining business?

Wang Mingliu: It can be roughly divided into two parts: ToB and ToC.

ToB mainly conducts joint mining with some large-scale financial enterprises, such as equity, guarantee, and financial leasing companies.

They invest in our special fund in the form of debt, equity or financial leasing, and we are responsible for the operation, including how to establish projects in compliance with regulations to obtain electricity, how to ensure the stability of power supply to the mine through better local resources, how to build standardized mines and form professional operation and maintenance teams, how to use actuarial calculations to equip mining machines of different types (GPU or Asic), different processes (16nm or 10nm), different brands, and different times (futures or spot), as well as a series of financial services such as hedging and quantification to provide customers in the later stage. The whole thing is a systematic project.

This actually goes back to the information asymmetry mentioned earlier. The reason why this business can be done is that we understand how to mine better than most people.

Speaking of ToC, many people may think that it is a matter that requires a lot of manpower, operations, and promotion, which is what people usually call a "hard job". But in fact, our products are aimed at high-net-worth individuals, and usually the minimum investment is 5,000T; of course, if our employees or friends come, they can also invest a minimum of 100T or 200T.

When the customer's investment reaches more than 5 million, we will provide customized cloud mining products. It should be noted that our product is completely different from the cloud computing power that everyone generally understands. Cloud mining not only refers to the mining mine, but also the mine in the mining farm. That is to say, the money he invested will be used to purchase mining machines and mining farms respectively.

For example, if a customer invests 10 million, we will allocate the proportion of funds according to his risk preference. For example, if his risk preference is high, then we may suggest that he use 9 million to buy mining machines and the remaining 1 million to build a mining farm that can meet the power load of these machines (for example, the actual configuration ratio still needs to be actuarial), so that the efficiency of earning coins may be faster; if the customer focuses on stability and hopes to have a 15%-20% return a year, then we may recommend that he use most of the money to build a mining farm and the rest to purchase mining equipment. When the coin price is good, the mining machine will make a lot of money, but if the coin price is not good, the mining farm can also generate a stable cash flow for it and effectively resist risks.

For Maoqiu, we will not collect any carry from you in advance. Instead, we will obtain a reasonable dividend reward from the customer's excess profit as agreed in advance after the customer has recovered his investment.

Odaily Planet Daily Q7.1: Based on your previous experience and the resources you have, I am curious whether you have encountered any common “pitfalls” during the mining process?

Wang Mingliu: Yes, yes. The most typical "pit" is the construction team, which can scam tens of millions.

We are taking an intensive route, which is to find a construction party to entrust the general contractor to several large mines in the same river basin. The value of the general contract is more than tens of millions. This is the best in terms of construction cost, management cost, etc.

Last time, I encountered a company whose boss was named Li and whose name was Lu**tai. A series of problems occurred, such as switching corners, replacing copper wire with aluminum wire, and assembling the transformer themselves instead of buying the national standard one.

Normally, a transformer costs hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. Self-assembled transformers can be 100,000 cheaper, but they are prone to problems. If you do the math, a 50,000 kWh mine would need at least dozens of transformers, which would cost millions, wouldn’t it? They didn’t settle the labor fees with the workers on site, so the migrant workers came to us.

This company really has no professional ethics. As far as I know, they have cheated many mine owners. We have already filed a lawsuit and the court is hearing the case.

Odaily Planet Daily Q7.2: When the discovery was made, was the mine already in operation, causing it to shut down?

Wang Mingliu: You are right. Our team immediately removed the problem after discovering it, and then invited other professional construction units to make secondary rectifications. But there was a problem. Many sites were booked by customers long ago, and the customers paid deposits. We made a bet with them that all the sites would be operational within a few days of the flood season, so we lost a lot of money to the customers later.

Odaily Planet Daily Q8: What is the current level of your own computing power and electricity load?

Wang Mingliu: Our computing power is quite large. The load of the entire Maoqiu is expected to reach one million kilowatt-hours by the end of this year. As for machines, our current hosting scale is in the hundreds of thousands.

When mining is no longer highly profitable, how should miners secure a stable landing?

Odaily Planet Daily Q9.1: I saw the return rate of your mining machine leasing posted on the homepage of Maoqiu Technology. It has fallen far from the highest return rate in history. To a certain extent, it represents the current situation of high investment, long payback period and low profit margin in the mining industry. Can you explain to us how this process happened?

Image: From the official website of Maoqiu Technology

Wang Mingliu: As you can see, the profit margins in this industry are plummeting. From mining machine sales, mining farm hosting to pure mining, business is difficult to do.

And I think that competition in the hosting industry will only become more and more intense in the future. As the saying goes, "This is the best of times, and it is also the worst of times."

Looking back, taking the managed electricity price during the flood season as an example, the electricity price increased from 0.5-0.6 yuan/kWh in 2017 to 0.4-0.45 yuan/kWh in 2018, to 0.25 yuan/kWh last year and around 0.25 yuan/kWh this year.

Now I can say with certainty that it will fall again next year. We added the load of most of China's mines and calculated the replacement of machines. The size of existing mines is far greater than the demand.

Now is what we call "out of breath". A large number of old mining machines like S9 will be shut down and removed from the shelves after the flood season this month. The production capacity of new Asic mining machines will not be able to be mass-produced in a short period of time to meet the market's replacement needs due to reasons such as giving way to 5G. The memory of old Ethereum graphics cards will be upgraded from 4G to 8G by the end of this year. Due to reasons such as yield rate and quality control, many miners will not risk spending money to upgrade. Most people will resell them, such as selling 1,000 units and replacing them with two or three hundred new 8G graphics card mining machines. In short, the number of machines, that is, the demand for hosting, will drop significantly.

If I were to summarize the causes of this process, I think there are four points:

First, the industry continues to grow and the difficulty of mining continues to rise;

Second, the price of the currency has been sluggish for a long time, and the bull market is always less than the bear market;

Third, after the big institutions came in, supply exceeded demand;

The fourth point, which I think is the most important, is that the information asymmetry in this industry is being leveled.

The third situation mentioned above occurs because of information asymmetry. As I often say, "It's like a wall. People outside still think that mining and mining infrastructure are highly profitable and are eager to get in, while some people inside the wall are already trying to break free."

Of course, as the industry develops, this information gap will become smaller and smaller. For example, by next year, it will become a common problem to attract investment, and there will not be so much hot money. Of course, compared with traditional businesses, its rate of return is still very high.

This is a process that any emerging industry must go through, from the initial wild growth to the return of value. The question is whether you can expand your base when you return.

Take Maoqiu for example. When we first started in 2017, the load was only a few hundred thousand kWh. Although we made huge profits, for example, the annualized rate of return exceeded 100%, how much was the total profit? Although the profit margin has become relatively low now, as long as the basic scale is established, the total profit will definitely increase.

In short, now is the time for practitioners to work hard on their internal skills and lay a solid foundation. I believe that the companies that survive to the end will reap great rewards.

Odaily Planet Daily Q9.2: You just mentioned that Bitcoin’s computing power is actually constantly increasing. How much do you think it might increase to by the end of the year or in the next year?

Wang Mingliu: In fact, value investors will not pay too much attention to the growth of computing power and difficulty. A fast increase is not necessarily a bad thing, which means that more people are optimistic about it, but it will be relatively uncomfortable for short-term investors.

Odaily Planet Daily Q10: As a "long-termist", how will Maoqiu deal with these short-term challenges?

Wang Mingliu: In the medium and long term, we have corresponding strategies.

In the long run, Maoqiu Technology will build synergy with other links in the industrial chain through strategic investment or in-depth cooperation to increase the depth of its own business.

Maoqiu is engaged in new infrastructure for mining farms, so can I invest in it, or work with upstream and downstream enterprises, such as enterprises that develop and produce mining machine chips? Once the chip tape-out is successful, it will become an important part of Maoqiu's entire blockchain new infrastructure ecological closed loop. The combination of the two can not only promote the sales of mining machines and after-sales services such as hosting of this enterprise, but also bring a steady stream of hosting customers to my mining farm (the focus of these enterprises is not on mining farm infrastructure).

There is also a category of financial derivatives based on miners' mining farms, which I am willing to invest in.

The demand for hedging by miners has been confirmed, and now the financial products that earn interest on deposits are gradually becoming popular. It is conceivable that the penetration rate of finance will gradually deepen. For these innovative financial companies in the field of digital encrypted assets, they will encounter a common concern in the minds of customers, that is, credit or trust issues. These concerns have nothing to do with the good or bad of customers and this type of financial company. In essence, it is because most of these companies manage customers' digital assets through a "centralized operating model", right? No one can guarantee that they will not run away. At the same time, because they are not currently subject to legal supervision, their default costs are relatively low. But after cooperating with Maoqiu, to some extent, you can get credit endorsement based on some physical assets.

For example, my custody clients can safely put the mined coins into Maoqiu's self-operated or strategically invested/cooperative financial products without worrying about running away. He can see that Maoqiu has so many mining farms and mining machines, plus the reputation in the industry and the endorsement of our shareholders. If we run away, the cost of default will be obviously higher, right? Therefore, I hope to empower some truly imaginative and professional financial teams through the Maoqiu brand to provide miners with some better financial derivatives services and make this industry more robust.

The signing ceremony of SoftBank China's investment in Maoqiu Technology

In the near future, we will upgrade our own products and services, and launch a "joint mining" product for medium-sized investors. This innovative model is worth talking about.

The essence of upgrading is to enhance our internal strength. As mentioned earlier, the competition in this industry will become more and more fierce. When the choice is left to customers, they will definitely choose the best of the best and choose the one with better quality and better experience. The so-called upgrading is to re-upgrade our software and hardware. Whether it is network deployment, real-time monitoring system for customers, or financial derivatives services that meet different needs, we are innovating according to the predetermined plan.

The second part is to optimize the Maoqiu joint mining product on the original basis so that it can be more accurately targeted at more individuals and medium-sized investors. Stay tuned.

Odaily Planet Daily Q11.1: On the other hand, do you think there is any link in the mining industry chain that still has a "good job"?

Wang Mingliu: It must be finance. The penetration rate of finance is getting higher every year. 2019 must be higher than 2018. It reached a peak after the beginning of 2020, but the 3.12 crash once again caused many people to be afraid to use it. This is more or less a short-term negative factor.

But if you put aside the result of "opening leverage and getting liquidated", what will you find? The root cause is not the product's fault, but the fact that investors are greedy and lack the means to hedge risks. It depends on how you understand it. I believe that the more violent ups and downs there are in the market, the more derivatives like hedging are needed to reduce the volatility of future expected returns.

Odaily Planet Daily Q11.2: People like you or Maoqiu didn’t add a lot of leverage?

Wang Mingliu: I never do anything about leverage. I am in the long term, and short-term fluctuations don’t mean much to me, because I won’t sell Bitcoin even if it rises to $20,000 today. What will I do with the money after selling it? So I hope that the price of the currency can grow slowly but steadily, rather than rising or falling sharply, which will hurt the market and make people afraid to come in. In this way, the consensus will become smaller and smaller, so how can we support Bitcoin to rise to $50,000 or $100,000? So I don’t do leverage.

The second objective reason is that my scale is relatively large.

For example, if I give you 10,000 yuan to invest in stocks, and the rate of return can reach 50%, then I believe it is not because you are good, but because you are bold and lucky. But if I give you another 10 million yuan, can you guarantee me the same 50% return? The answer is definitely no. Because different financial asset sizes are accompanied by different investment strategies.

What makes a big miner a big miner?

Odaily Planet Daily Q12.1: People in the industry know that you are a mining tycoon with plenty of money. Can you describe to us the characteristics of the big miners?

Wang Mingliu: Big miners are very powerful and low-key. They are medium- and long-term investors, and their investment preferences are more rational and cautious.

Short-termists, why don’t you just take the money and speculate in the secondary market? In 2018-2019, there were investors who bought coins with tens of millions of yuan. Weren’t they swallowed up by the market in these rounds? On the other hand, running a company will be slower but safer.

I think we are quite simple. The reason why many big miners are still here is, first, because we are lucky, and second, because we are forced to hold the coins passively due to mining in the mines. It is really not because we have done anything great.

Those who think they are smart will make moves in the market more frequently. There will definitely be opponents in the market who are smarter than us, so the result is unknown.

We will not make too many innovations, just stick to our original intention of hoarding coins. I believe that digital assets will eventually become an indispensable part of human asset allocation in the next few years.

Finally, I would like to add that many big miners make a fortune quietly, haha.

Odaily Planet Daily Q12.2: Do you think there are any differences between you and other miners?

Wang Mingliu: I don’t really like drinking, socializing or attending industry events.

The most important thing in this industry is to understand the trend. Unlike many other industries, you don't have to deal with many investors and media, go to roadshows and presentations to expand channels. Even if it is necessary, our team members are fully capable of doing it. In addition, in the past few years, our Maoqiu Technology has also been well-known in the industry, and others will come if they want to.

I occasionally drink tea with some miners, but after all, there are not as many people who like to drink tea as those who like to drink alcohol.

Odaily Planet Daily Q13: I would like to know if you have any investments or promising projects in the blockchain world besides Bitcoin mining?

Wang Mingliu: I participated in ICO in 2017, EOS in 2018, and sharding technology projects in 2019. Now I am less likely to participate.

I can only say that after being in this industry for a long time, I have a more thorough understanding of many things. At this stage, I don’t like many projects at least. There are also some good projects, but they have many restrictions for early investors, such as a long lock-up period. Do you know what will happen in a year? I don’t even know what the price of Bitcoin will be in a year, let alone other projects. Overall, my investment in this industry will be more stable.

Odaily Planet Daily Q14.1: I am curious about your trading style as a long-termist?

Wang Mingliu: The funds used to hoard coins are put aside after buying coins. Then, if the liquidity is OK, I will invest monthly. Because I am a firm believer and evangelist of Bitcoin. This belief is even stronger now. In the post-epidemic era, central banks of various countries have released money one after another. At this stage, in addition to gold, mainstream digital encrypted assets led by Bitcoin and Ethereum will definitely be the best safe-haven asset options, without a doubt.

Odaily Planet Daily Q14.2: What is the approximate position allocation like?

Wang Mingliu: Bitcoin accounts for about 70%, and the rest is Ethereum.

My original ratio was 50-50 between the two currencies. Starting last year, I felt that Bitcoin’s liquidity, transaction volume, and consensus were indeed much better than Ethereum, so I increased the allocation ratio.

But in the past six months, I am more optimistic about Ethereum. Although I think DeFi mining is a Ponzi scheme, there is no hot spot this year except DeFi and IPFS, and there are still many herd investments in the Chinese market, so I think DeFi will continue to be popular; and its prosperity must be based on the Ethereum ecosystem.

So although I am not involved in any DeFi projects, I am involved in Ethereum mining.

As for the ICOs I participated in before, these coins are only held for short term and I will not hold on to them.

Odaily Planet Daily Q15: From a macroeconomic perspective, for example, in the next one or two years, are you optimistic about the rise of Bitcoin? What unfavorable conditions and high-risk factors do you think exist at present?

Wang Mingliu: As long as the economy is bad enough, it will always be favored. The ancients said, "In prosperous times, hoard antiques, and in troubled times, hoard gold", because gold has the characteristics of deflation, and Bitcoin is the gold in digital currency.

I don’t see the negative factor you mentioned. I think the current environment is peaceful for Bitcoin. I believe this from the bottom of my heart.

Think about it, in the post-epidemic era, whether it is an institution or an individual, what kind of hedging product should he choose so that he can be traded 24 hours a day and easy to carry like Bitcoin. Gold is so difficult to store. Look at how much the price of gold has risen in recent months? How many stock investors have poured into the Chinese stock market in recent months? Perhaps more than 80% of them are retail investors who have not made any money or even lost money in the past 20 years. Why are both retail investors and institutions entering again? Because liquidity is flooded. What supports this wave of Shanghai and Shenzhen stock market surges is not that the ROI and ROE of listed companies have generally become better than in 2019. In fact, they have continued to deteriorate. The real reason is the country's support policies for the capital market and the influx of more hot money. So when the stock market falls, people will actively or passively pay attention to alternative assets. It is only a matter of time.

Odaily Planet Daily Q16: Last question, I would like to ask about your work habits and life status?

Wang Mingliu: My habit is to work overtime, then go home and watch American TV series. When I have free time, I will go to preach with like-minded friends.

Many of my friends have been converted, but the revolution has not yet succeeded. I hope to convert all of their hundreds of millions (RMB) into this industry, so that they can invest in this industry and make the entire industry bigger and better. There is still a lot of room for improvement. Because this is not a matter of taking out a few million, the minimum investment is tens of millions. You can only "penetrate" this scale of investment slowly over time, haha.

Odaily Planet Daily: There is a long way to go, and the industry needs more evangelists like you. That’s all the questions. Thank you for sharing today.