The crypto market is a place where extreme gains and painful losses often exist side-by-side. The story of a Texan memecoin trader, new experiments with AI trading bots, and a costly mistake by a Cardano investor show just how broad the spectrum can be.
Memecoin Trader’s Success Story #
Jake Claver, director of Digital Ascension Group, advises wealthy families in the crypto world. He told CoinDesk how a client from Dallas managed to turn $11,000 into nearly half a billion dollars. That enormous growth came primarily from trading memecoins using a so-called sniper bot—software that buys and sells new tokens within milliseconds based on preset parameters.
The man managed everything himself and earned millions with this approach. Later, Claver convinced him to convert some of his profits into XRP. That also proved to be a masterstroke, as his position eventually became six times more valuable.
AI Trading Not a Silver Bullet #
While some traders find success with automated tools, a recent experiment by Alpha Arena shows that artificial intelligence is far from a magic bullet for crypto trading. Six AI bots were each given €10,000 to trade on their own initiative on HyperLiquid for one month. They were only allowed to trade major coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.
The results were mixed and not spectacular. Qwen finished convincingly as the winner with €12,287. DeepSeek came in second with €10,476. The Western models performed much worse, with ChatGPT even dropping to €3,734. According to expert Jan Scheele, simply buying and holding Bitcoin would have yielded better results than most of the bots.
Scheele sees that open-source and Asian models are currently leading, possibly due to access to larger and more centralized datasets. However, he does not expect AI to dominate the market anytime soon. Markets are too volatile, emotional, and difficult to predict for that.
How Not to Trade #
That automation is no guarantee for safety was demonstrated once again by a Cardano investor. He wanted to exchange 14.4 million ADA, worth $6.9 million, for a stablecoin. Due to his own mistake, he chose an almost illiquid pool, causing the price to completely derail. He received only $847,695 back. In one click, he lost over $6 million.
The blunder was shared by blockchain researcher ZachXBT and serves as an immediate warning, as illiquid pools can completely swallow large orders. The incident even caused a temporary spike in the stablecoin’s price before it returned to normal. So, be very careful when choosing a stablecoin for a large trade.
Together, the three stories show how great the opportunities and risks remain in crypto. Automation helps, but knowledge, liquidity, and caution remain indispensable.