Author: Kuli, Shenchao TechFlow
Original Title: Where the Fish Head Faces He Yi: Crypto Has Its Shandong-Style Politics Too
There's a rule at Shandong banquets: when the fish is served, the head must face the seat of honor.
Whoever it faces is the main guest and must drink first. This isn't written down anywhere, but everyone in Shandong knows it. No one teaches you; you just learn it.
Recently, someone drew a picture called "Crypto Shandong-Style Politics." A group of people sit around a table eating fish, with He Yi in the seat of honor, flanked by KOLs, the listing team, and social media editors.
Caption: For a Binance listing, the fish head must face He Yi.
On January 1st, He Yi posted a New Year's tweet. Riding a white horse by the seaside, caption in four characters:
我踏马来了 (Wǒ tà mǎ lái le - I've f*cking arrived).
A fine New Year's greeting. "Tà mǎ" (踏马), the Year of the Horse, with a bit of playful homophonic wordplay.
Today, Binance Alpha listed a new token called "我踏马来了" (I've F*cking Arrived). It was community-made, with no direct connection to He Yi.
But look at this chain: First Sister tweets, the community creates a token, Alpha lists it.
No one needs to give any orders in the middle.
Last year, Binance was hounded by accusations of "BFF coins," alleging shady listing practices and利益输送 (interest conveyance/corruption). He Yi responded several times, saying they were reflecting, adjusting, and even created Alpha as a screening pool.
In December, she also tweeted saying, don't try to find angles in our official tweets about various Memes; we won't pay attention to this kind of thing anymore.
28 days later, her New Year's tweet became a new token on Alpha.
What was the problem with BFF coins? It was about backdoor deals, favoritism,利益输送 (interest conveyance/corruption).
These require evidence, a paper trail, a specific "BFF."
But "I've F*cking Arrived" doesn't need any of that.
No backdoor, no favoritism, no利益输送. First Sister posted a picture, and the people below just started moving on their own.
This perhaps touches on the essence of Shandong-style politics: the leader doesn't need to speak; you have to figure it out yourself.
Someone in the community commented that Alpha is now just a tool for currying favor, its purpose is to make First Sister happy.
Crude wording, but it describes a certain atmosphere.
When a platform's direction starts revolving around someone's social media activity, when "which coin to list" becomes "guess what she likes," rules cease to matter.
What matters is揣摩 (speculation/reading intentions).
Some put it more harshly: If you want to know if an industry has a future, ask one question—In this industry, do people who are good at flattery succeed more easily than people who are good at doing the work?
If the answer is "yes," then this industry is on the decline.
In crypto, this trick really works. And the most successful ones, everyone knows which direction the flattery should be aimed.
The core resources in the AI circle are technology and products; you have to deliver. Jensen Huang won't allocate you GPUs just because you call him daddy every day.
The core resources in the crypto circle are listing power, traffic, and who knows the news first. These things aren't in the code; they're in people's hands.
Things in people's hands must be obtained through human methods.
The more Shandong-style politics prevails, the more it relies on connections and information asymmetry, not innovation and technology.
He Yi might not even know about this. A small MEME worth a few million market cap isn't enough to bother the Co-CEO.
But that's precisely the problem.
She doesn't need to know. The fish head will turn by itself.
This is really much more efficient than BFF coins.
BFF coins at least required a BFF. Shandong-style politics only requires an atmosphere.
And those who see through this set of rules and implement them thoroughly are, in a way, also talented.
After all, in this society, people laugh at the poor, not the prostitute. (笑贫不笑娼 - A saying criticizing societal values that scorn poverty but overlook the means of acquiring wealth).
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