Charlie Munger said the first rule of fishing is to go where the fish are. Host Ruby adds a corollary: go where the price hasn't reached consensus yet. In this episode of Day1Global — Born Global, Ruby sits down with Jason Huang, founder of digital asset hedge fund NDV (NextGen Digital Venture) and former head of China at Blue Pool Capital — the family office of Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai. After nearly a decade in VC at firms including Huaxing and Qiming, Jason left at the coldest moment of the crypto winter (right after the FTX collapse) to start NDV. His first fund returned approximately 3.75x in 23 months before fully liquidating and returning capital to investors.
The conversation covers two big themes. First, how to understand assets across different markets and cycles: why Jason believes Bitcoin's four-year cycle hasn't bottomed yet, how on-chain data and rising US Treasury yields create a double ceiling for BTC, and why he rotated aggressively into commodities — oil, agricultural products, and the gold-to-silver ratio — as a global macro hedge during the crypto trough. Jason also shares his views on stablecoins, RWA, prediction markets, Hyperliquid, and one of his most contrarian calls: that sports trading cards (a Victor Wembanyama rookie card recently sold for $5.11 million) are the "Picasso of the next 10–20 years." Second, the two explore what independent operators and retail investors can learn from Jason's path out of institutional finance: why flexibility is the retail investor's greatest edge over institutions, how to only bet at the "10th percentile" of entry conditions, and why doing things others look down on is often the only way to find real alpha.
In this episode:
- Jason's background: From Huaxing and Qiming VC to Joe Tsai's family office Blue Pool Capital, then founding NDV in 2023 at the bottom of the crypto bear market
- First fund performance: 3.75x return in ~23 months; buying Bitcoin during the Silicon Valley Bank collapse week
- Why he left VC: Capital-side innovation (family offices) vs. asset-side innovation; why Blue Pool was the best learning ground
- Biggest mindset upgrade: Trust common sense, reject speculation, use first principles to bridge Chinese- and English-language information gaps
- Bitcoin cycle view: Four-year cycle not yet bottomed; long-term holders still distributing; rising US Treasury yields as a double headwind
- 2025 macro rotation: Heavy positioning in oil and agricultural commodities; the inflation transmission chain from energy → fertilizer → food prices
- Gold-to-silver ratio trade: How Jason calculates a ~95% win-rate safety margin from historical extremes
- Stablecoins, RWA, and prediction markets: What these asset classes actually represent structurally
- Sports cards as an asset class: Why Wembanyama's $5.11M rookie card signals a new "Picasso" category — and how it differs from NFT profile pictures
- Hyperliquid: Why Jason is bullish and how the Coase theorem applies to on-chain exchange design
- Advice for independent operators: Retail's flexibility advantage, the 10th-percentile entry rule, and why you must do things others look down on
- Rapid-fire: Druckenmiller as an influence, most contrarian asset picks, and advice for anyone leaving an institution to go solo