Katalyzers Spotlight: Dragos

Dragos is an OG member of the Kaito Katalyzers community. This series highlights our top power-users, showcasing their diverse backgrounds and how they utilize Kaito.

Q: To start, can you introduce yourself and share how you got into crypto? What’s your focus now?

A: I got into crypto in 2017, initially leveraging my internet marketing background. I was experimenting with online businesses and stumbled upon the ICO craze. My entry point was building a company that created explainer videos for ICOs, which helped me connect with top projects early on. That led to investing in ICOs and going through the usual ups and downs of crypto cycles.

In 2020, things got more exciting with DeFi and on-chain activities. I stayed in DeFi during the NFT craze, which I largely faded due to my focus on merit-based tokens. Now, in my third cycle, I feel more experienced. Recently, I’ve been heavily involved in meme coins, learning from past mistakes, and embracing the narratives that drive them.

Q: What’s your perspective on on-chain opportunities compared to other segments of crypto?

A: On-chain is my favorite because it feels like the most meritocratic part of the market. Unlike centralized exchanges or insider-driven projects, on-chain allows you to succeed by being good at analyzing data and spotting trends early. You can track wallets, narratives, and movements transparently, which gives you an edge without needing insider information.

Q: How do you identify projects or narratives with potential early on?

A: I’m not usually the first to discover a project because I don’t spend all my time hunting for new tickers. Instead, I’m part of groups like L’s Lab, which have incredibly skilled members. These groups surface many tickers, which I then evaluate based on narrative strength.

For example, with Pandora, I noticed unique mechanics like tradable tokens that also acted as NFTs. By diving into their Telegram and understanding their approach, I recognized a new narrative forming. While some narratives like Pandora’s can be fleeting, others—like the AI meme coin meta—have stronger foundations, tying into broader trends like AI’s dominance in tech.

Q: Can you provide an example of a narrative you identified early?

A: Pandora is a good example. When it launched, I noticed its novel approach to tradable NFTs, which aligned with my pragmatic perspective on NFTs. By engaging with the community and analyzing the tech, I spotted the narrative early and wrote the first thread about it, which gained traction.

In contrast, the AI meme coin meta has been much more powerful. It combines the meme coin appeal with a legitimate technological trend, making it a dominant narrative across markets.

Q: What lessons have you learned from being part of groups that track narratives?

A: Being in skilled groups can be both a blessing and a curse. During periods of market “chop,” we sometimes over-traded trends without realizing the lack of direction. For instance, from March to September, many in our group experienced portfolio drawdowns despite being active.

The key takeaway is to stay selective and develop a feel for when a narrative has lasting potential versus when it’s just hype. This discernment helps avoid overexposure during weaker market phases.

Q: What are some criteria you use to identify promising projects early on? How do you evaluate potential?

A: Honestly, I don’t always identify projects first. I’m not someone who constantly hunts for new tickers or spends all my time looking for the next big thing. Instead, I rely on a few groups I’m part of where people are absolutely obsessed with finding new opportunities. For example, "The Lab” community is a public group, so I can shout it out. There are maybe 180 people within that group, but maybe 20 to 40 super active and elite onchain degens, and when the market is good, the group performs incredibly well.

However, during market chop, like from March to September this year, we didn’t realize we were in a chop. We jumped on trends, but it led to mixed results—small wins and small losses, with the losses accumulating. By September, many of us were down significantly from earlier in the year.

For me, the process usually involves assessing the tickers shared in these groups and analyzing the narrative and other metrics behind them. I’ve developed a sense for evaluating new token launches over time, but it's hard to put all the signals into a single framework.

Q: Can you share an example of evaluating a project or narrative early?

A: One example is Pandora. I was early to this back in February. It launched after another project had rugged, but I didn’t know about that previous project, which may have been an advantage for me. Initially, I noticed the token’s price fluctuating and saw interesting activity in the Telegram group. I looked into the tech and their concept of blending NFTs with tokens in a new way—something I hadn’t seen before.

I don’t usually trade NFTs because I’m pragmatic and not interested in the rarity hype. However, Pandora offered a unique mechanic: you could buy NFTs and sell them at floor price without worrying about rarity. That concept made sense to me. I wrote the first thread on it, and it took off as people piled in.

However, I misjudged how fleeting the narrative was. Pandora was exciting but didn’t have the staying power of something like the AI meme coin meta, which has been much stronger because it ties into a larger trend—AI technology—which is dominating both crypto and traditional markets.

So, yeah, going back to Pandora, it was one of those early examples where the concept really clicked for me. The whole idea of randomization with tokens and NFTs was cool, especially since I’m not into the typical NFT scene. I don’t care about rarity; I just want to be able to sell quickly if I needed to. And Pandora was doing something unique in that space. But, like I said, the narrative wasn’t strong enough to last, and it didn’t take long for things to die down. That’s a good example of a "weaker" narrative, even though the tech was interesting.

Now, when we talk about the AI meme coin meta—man, that’s something completely different. It’s way more powerful, because there’s actual substance behind it.I remember seeing Marc Andreessen had donated 50k in $BTC to this AI bot that was posting on X and I instantly thought “if that bot ever deploys or is associated with a token, it will go crazy.

So one morning I woke up and saw the last messages in a group being about “the AI bot launching a token”. I rushed out of bed, quickly asked what had happened and bought between 5-7M market cap. I had missed the accumulation period by about 15 mins (it traded around 2M market cap for maybe 1-2 hours).

This then sparked an entire meta where $GOAT is the leader because of its provenance and narrative, but you have a bunch of other AI Agents or related coins that have gone to crazy valuations, all competing against each other - $ZEREBRO, $FARTCOIN $BULLY, $SHEGEN, $AI16Z and many others that I am probably forgetting to mention.

And then, speaking of $FartCoin—it’s funny because I tweet about it all the time, and I get a ton of engagement. It's one of those coins that’s so dumb, it actually works. It's left curve, and that’s what I love about it. People either think it’s hilarious or they hate it completely, but that reaction is a huge indicator. The more people talk about it, whether they love it or hate it, the stronger the community gets. You’ve got people like Bleeker, Dip Wheeler, Enguin, and Gammichan and many others who are constantly tweeting about it, and the engagement is wild. You can see the potential behind it, even if it sounds ridiculous. It’s got this cult-like following now, and that's what makes me even more bullish on it.

The thing about Fartcoin is, there seemingly is no actual team behind it. There is no Telegram group, no sticker packs, no memes. It’s just a memecoin. But it’s something that is so easy to meme, that it created a cult-like community around it on X. On top of that, it sounds so ridiculous (and somewhat divisive at the same time) that it will keep getting attention. Funny enough, the higher it goes in value, the more people will talk about it - the media will embrace it because it will have the most ridiculous headlines: “Millionaires minted from Fartcoin”.

This entire analysis is my subjective take formed by being a Fartcoin evangelist (lmao) from day 1. I talk and tweet about it, so I see people’s reactions and I constantly get a pulse on the community. But this is where Kaito helps me a lot - I can actually get quantitative data on attention. Most of my memecoin picks that I can size up on have been top 20 in terms of Mindshare on Kaito on longer timeframes.

And that’s where I think the real money is: being able to identify the coins with the right narrative, and most importantly, the right community backing. If you can get in early on a meme coin that’s got both the right momentum and a passionate community behind it, you’re in a good spot. That’s why tools like Kaito are so helpful—they’re not just tracking price movements; they’re tracking the conversations and the hype. If you can read between the lines and pick up on the sentiment before it blows up, that’s when you make your moves.

Q: Why do you think the AI meme coin meta is so powerful?

A: It’s powerful because it’s more than just speculation. While they’re still meme coins, they have some level of fundamentals. AI is the dominant technological trend right now, whether in stocks, crypto, or broader tech. This broader relevance gives the AI meme coin meta a strong foundation and makes it a more sustainable narrative.

It’s also something completely new and never seen before - here we have these AI experiments actually interacting with us on social media, some of them have wallets, they execute transactions, they deploy tokens, they can manage their own funds; and these agents are still quite primitive, but improving very fast, which is why I expect this meta to last throughout the bull run and constantly produce new winners that improve upon the previous iterations.

Q: How do you approach position sizing when trading meme coins, especially in a market with rapid cycles and a high level of volatility?

Position sizing in meme coins is key to managing risk and maximizing potential. If you’re starting out with a smaller portfolio, you might aim for quick flips, targeting newly launched coins with potential for short-term gains. I think the key here is reducing risk (eg taking initials) as fast as you can, rotating most of your bag when you feel comfortable and leaving a moon bag in case you hit an absolute winner

For larger portfolios, it’s important to think in terms of percentages of supply. For example, if you're looking at a meme coin like FartCoin early on, you might target 0.1% to 1% of the total supply, depending on your portfolio size. One investor I know consistently buys 1% of promising meme coins and holds through their mini cycles, which has led to significant returns.

If you're involved in multiple meme coins, allocating a portion of your capital to each coin based on its potential can yield substantial profits. For example, if you invested 1% in coins like Goat, Zerebro, FartCoin, and others during a specific cycle, you could have seen returns in the millions. Timing is also critical—understanding the meta cycle helps you avoid entering too late in the game. For instance, in the AI meme coin cycle, I stopped buying new coins when it felt like a rotation game, preferring to wait for leaders in the category to emerge.

Ultimately, it’s about balancing portfolio size, coin supply, and market timing to optimize your entries and exits in meme coin markets.

Q: How do you utilize Kaito in your trading strategy, especially in terms of tracking meme coins, and how do you see it as a tool for confirmation or decision-making?

It took me a few weeks to really dive into high mindshare memes, and that's when Kaito became incredibly useful. For example, I had bought into a Solana-based meme coin, PUPS, earlier this year and made some great returns in March and April. It then had a nasty retracement (almost 98%) and I began accumulating it again.When I saw it trending on Kaito's mindshare, it confirmed for me that it was a good coin to continue accumulating.

Kaito is especially helpful when I’m tracking meme coins across different categories. For instance, I can see how a meme coin, like PUPS, performs within its specific ecosystem (Solana in this case) and compare it to others. It also gives me insight into more established coins, which I prefer to buy when they’re down 60-80%. This strategy allows me to avoid the risky, late-stage investments in new AI meme coins after the hype peaks.

The platform’s mindshare feature is the most valuable for me. It’s not necessarily an early signal tool, but it helps me understand which coins are capturing the most attention on Twitter, which is a good confirmation signal. It also allows me to size up with more conviction on high-mindshare coins, after I have done some DD on their communities and narratives.Kaito helps filter out some of the noise, making it easier to identify coins that have staying power, reducing the risk of them going to zero. I use it to track the top 20 meme coins and compare their attention levels. This gives me more confidence when I share updates with my followers or make decisions about which meme coins to invest in.