Original source: OKX

In the development history of the Chinese internet, there exists a unique entity—V2EX. It is not a product created by a commercial giant, nor has it been subjected to overwhelming marketing promotions. In fact, it has remained uncommercialized for over a decade, yet it has become a spiritual home for programmers and designers.

The founder of this community has a legendary story: in 2011, he mined a complete Bitcoin using a gaming computer and then auctioned it on the forum for 60 RMB. Today, as the price of Bitcoin approaches 120,000 USD, that post has become a "famous landmark" of V2EX, with people checking in every time Bitcoin hits a new high.

From an idea to a community of hundreds of thousands of users, from selling Bitcoin for 60 RMB to now, this is a story about persistence, ideals, and how to find a balance between commercialization and original intentions.

In this issue, the friends from OKX have a conversation with the guest: V2EX forum founder Livid @Livid, interviewer: Mercy @Mercy_okx, welcome everyone to follow along～

Chapter 1: The Green by the Sandbox—The Persistence of Idealists

Mercy: V2EX is well-known among programmers. Why did you initially create this platform? How did you find a balance between idealism and commercialization?

In fact, V2EX is not a typical commercial project. Many programmers have various ideas, and I think it initially was just an idea in my head. I sat in front of my computer, wrote this program, and put it on the internet so that everyone could access it through a domain name.

Later, due to various coincidences, it became a place for many programmers and designers to communicate online, and it has existed for over a decade. V2EX was not a project where I wrote a long business plan with specific goals for certain years. It was something I thought of one day, created, and put online for everyone to access. Coincidentally, many people liked it, and it naturally grew.

The most interesting aspect of its growth is the network effect. Initially, it was just a program I wrote, but when the second person, the third person joined, and more people—now there are hundreds of thousands—various complex connections and fun things happen among them. Every new person who joins this network makes the entire network more interesting.

So my current thought is to hope it can continue to exist in a simple way. The essence of all businesses is that the money received is greater than the money spent. As long as you understand this basic principle, this thing can continue to exist.

Mercy: Many programmers probably have similar ideas and have written code to bring them to life. Why has only V2EX succeeded over the years? What do you think makes it unique?

I think it relates to the product form. Although V2EX is not as large as Facebook, in nature, V2EX is also a social network. If there are only a few people here, it won't grow, but once it attracts enough people from a certain field, it enters a growth state and can eventually attract almost everyone in that field.

When it reaches a critical mass, it becomes a very unique existence. Because at that point, going to other types of websites won't provide the same experience.

For example, many discussions on V2EX are about specific technical issues. Many times, if you ask a question, it’s likely that someone else has already solved it. If you ask accurately enough, you might get a very precise answer within three replies, and it comes from a real person, not an AI-generated response.

It is this experience that makes everyone feel they can find useful information here, and perhaps the knowledge they have can also help others. This positive network effect gives it a necessary existence.

If I were making a game, no matter how fun it is, once you figure out all the rules, you won't play it anymore. But this is different; it is a social network where all interactions are with real people, and real people will always provide you with unexpected things—most of the time good, sometimes bad, but it is real interaction. So it won't be like a game where you stop playing once you find all the rules.

Mercy: I noticed you are very active on the forum, frequently replying. Why have you maintained such a high level of community engagement until now?

We have recently launched many new features, which are actually significant changes. During the deployment of these changes, I was quite nervous because I didn't want any mistakes.

Whenever there are major changes, I generally check for new feedback from users and any issues that need to be resolved as long as I am awake. There will definitely be problems; it’s impossible not to have any, so I hope to see them and resolve them as quickly as possible. Once everything is resolved, I feel more comfortable.

Chapter 2: The Illusion of Transparency—The Dual Identity of Developer and Product Manager

Mercy: What is the difference between a developer and a product manager? It sounds like you are both a developer and a product manager. What are the differences between these two roles?

I personally have never gone through the complete process of designing something as a product manager. I have always been a visual thinker; when I think about something, I first imagine what it looks like, and then I consider what code needs to be written and what image resources are needed to make it happen, and then I go ahead and create it.

I think there can often be communication issues between product managers and programmers. This is a common problem humans encounter, called "illusion of transparency."

For example, when a product manager designs something, they are very clear about what it is, but sometimes they might think, "I've explained it so clearly, why don't you understand?" In reality, the communication process is very difficult. You need to genuinely assume that the other person knows nothing about what you are talking about and patiently explain it to them.

Similarly, on the programmer's side, they might have other tasks to do before implementing something. At that point, they might already have a full schedule, and when someone asks them, "Can you help me with something else?" they might be internally screaming, thinking, "I’m already fully booked; don’t you know that?"

Everyone has things they think others should know, but in reality, others really don’t know. I think this might be the essence of the communication problems we often encounter.

Mercy: It’s a bit like a game of telephone; by the time it gets from the first person to the fifth person, the fifth person’s message is completely different from the first person’s.

Exactly, communication is a difficult thing. So in the process of doing my own work, I basically work alone. I might communicate with our designer a bit, but the whole process is mostly me handling everything from start to finish.

Real communication happens when I finish my work and go live; there will definitely be things I hadn’t thought of before, so user feedback is particularly important to me. Users will tell me things I really hadn’t considered or mistakes I made.

Mercy: You seem to value this community and communication with users very much. Over the course of more than a decade, have there been any memorable experiences?

There are too many, but if I had to summarize, I think it’s a matter of time. More than a decade ago, when I first started this, I was just like many users, a twenty-something kid, some of whom were still in school.

At that time, the issues we discussed included school-related problems, relationship issues with boyfriends and girlfriends, and job-hunting problems. Then in 2020, many people started their own businesses, discussing issues related to starting a business or hiring, product development issues.

As time has passed, I now see more and more discussions about how to raise children or how to get along with partners' parents. These topics were not as prevalent over a decade ago, though it could also be because I am now paying attention to these issues, so I notice them more.

In this process, I’ve seen many people who registered accounts over a decade ago and watched them start new ventures, which then grew significantly.

I remember one particularly early user who even donated to support us in this endeavor. His ID was Beenhero, and he was one of our earliest users back in 2010. I later learned that he went on to create a project called imToken.

Over the course of more than a decade, seeing many things and people grow from zero to their current state, the growth and changes of each person in this process give me a particularly unforgettable feeling.

Chapter 3: The 60 RMB Bitcoin—A Legendary Beginning

Mercy: How did you first get into blockchain? Was it because someone was discussing it on the forum?

Definitely. I remember back in 2011, people here started discussing Bitcoin-related topics. At that time, I began mining Bitcoin using my gaming computer.

I remember in June 2011, it took about two nights of running my gaming computer to mine a complete Bitcoin. After I mined a complete Bitcoin, I did something: I said, "Okay, I’ve mined a complete Bitcoin, now I’ll start an auction on the forum, and the highest bidder can get this Bitcoin."

Then a bunch of forum users started bidding, and in the end, that complete Bitcoin was sold for 60 RMB, haha. That post is still there, and over the years, I often receive replies to that post, all saying "checking in."

Mercy: It has become a famous landmark?

Yes, it is a landmark. Every time Bitcoin hits a new high, people go back to that post and say things like, "Wow, Bitcoin is 10,000 USD," "Bitcoin is 50,000," "Bitcoin is over 100,000," "Bitcoin is too expensive," and that post now has hundreds of replies.

Mercy: Have you mined Bitcoin again or bought back Bitcoin later?

There have been many things I’ve played with since then. For example, a fun experiment we just did is that we now have our own token, so we created a liquidity pool for V2EX and Bitcoin on Solana.

I actually use it as a sort of fixed deposit, meaning I periodically put our own token and Bitcoin—Bitcoin on Solana—into this liquidity pool.

So if one day this liquidity pool becomes large enough, our token, which is currently priced in relation to Solana, might, in the future, if this new Bitcoin-based liquidity pool is comparable in size to the Solana pool, have its price be half related to Solana and half related to Bitcoin. I think that would be quite interesting.

Mercy: It sounds like a big vision or experiment, similar to Satoshi Nakamoto's experiment in creating Bitcoin.

Chapter 4: Choosing Solana—The Philosophy of "It Just Works"

Mercy: Why did you choose to launch the V2EX token on Solana?

We have been thinking about this for many years, and for various reasons, we only did it in 2025. In a sense, this was done quite late, but I believe that our previous experiences determined that this was the way to do it.

Before we launched this recent series of operations, we actually tried many products on Ethereum. We had built a lot of things on Ethereum, but I think anyone who has used the Ethereum mainnet knows that the gas fees are quite terrifying and not very user-friendly, including Vitalik himself has written an article discussing the gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet.

Then Layer 2 solutions came out, but after using many Layer 2 products, I felt that Layer 2 might not be a solution; it could be a new problem.

Mercy: A new problem?

Yes, it could be part of a new problem, not a solution.

Solana allows you to install a wallet, like OKX wallet, and start using it directly. You don’t need to think about which chain your money is on, you don’t need to worry about whether the cross-chain website you are using is reliable, and you don’t have to wonder why your money hasn’t arrived after several minutes of cross-chain transactions.

Moreover, most of the time, the gas fees on Solana are approximately zero. I feel it embodies the "It just works" philosophy, requiring little explanation.

Mercy: What discussions about blockchain are there on the V2EX website?

Actually, discussions about blockchain or Web3 have always existed on our site, but I noticed that while many people previously discussed Bitcoin and Ethereum, there has indeed been less discussion about Solana.

However, after we made such significant changes, I saw something really interesting. Since most of the people on our site are programmers, Solana represents a new programming interface for them. Once they have this new programming interface, they start thinking about what they can do with it.

This is a very fun thing; every week, every day, I can see users creating new things based on Solana or based on the V2EX token.

For example, they created a Next.js template that allows you to integrate the V2EX token into your own website, saving a lot of work.

I also saw one of our users in Japan who created a particularly beautiful blog site called Quaily. They launched a new feature that allows users to pay their monthly or quarterly subscription fees using the V2EX token, which is a new feature for them.

Additionally, we implemented a tipping feature. Since our tipping feature is one-on-one, some users felt, "One-on-one tipping is too tiring; I’ll create a batch tipping tool." They went ahead and made some.

As I mentioned earlier, this is a network, so when one person does something, others in the network who are also interested in that will see it and naturally become curious.

Ultimately, from the data, since we launched this token, the topics about building on Solana have been increasing, and they are genuinely thinking of some particularly fun ideas.

For instance, today, before I started chatting with you, I saw a new post where someone created a smart contract based on the V2EX token and Solana. My understanding is that it is a listing platform where you can list your tokens and desired prices, and if another person thinks your listed price is acceptable, they can directly send the token to that contract.

This is just a simple contract interaction without any fees charged on the protocol. So why did they create this?

This is what I mean by programmers; when they see something, they think of a bunch of ideas and "what ifs," and then they actually go and create that "what if," especially now with AI, you just need one night and a couple of cups of coffee to get it done.

Chapter 5: More Than Just a Meme Coin—The Innovative Experiment of the V2EX Token

Mercy: From what I’ve heard, it seems you are using V2EX as a lever to connect the community with Web3. What made you want to do this initially?

Before May of last year, our website was open for public registration, and anyone could register.

But in May of last year, my fellow administrators and I had to deal with a large amount of spam every day, and handling spam is not something you enjoy doing more the more you do it; every time we dealt with it, we thought, "We are wasting our lives."

Later, we made a decision to change the registration method to invite-only, requiring existing users to use copper coins from our previous points system to generate invitation codes for new accounts.

This method was quite effective, reducing spam to almost zero. However, it also created a new problem: if someone genuinely wanted to join the site but didn’t know anyone with an invitation code, they couldn’t get in.

So in July of this year, I thought, what if we added a wallet to the site, like OKX Wallet, so that our users could bind a blockchain address to their accounts and log in using a wallet plugin?

If new users don’t have an account, they could register on the site by holding our token. This effectively gave the token its first use case: it could be used to register a new account. If this logic holds, then the token’s price would have a basic support. After coming up with this idea in early July, I started writing code.

Mercy: What do you think about Pumpfun? What is V2EX's unique utility or innovation for the future?

I actually happened to use Pumpfun to launch this, so people might categorize it as a memecoin, but this is how I see the issue—

As long as you fill in a name and submit an image, you can create a token in about five minutes, and the cost is almost zero.

I think this is a particularly powerful innovation on Solana; it has turned the mysterious process of issuing tokens into something as simple as registering a new account or changing a profile picture. Moreover, it has made this a very fair process, where everyone uses the same formula, and the underlying mathematics, bonding curve, and AMM mechanisms are all identical.

Most people who use this method to launch a token, after launching, only engage in pump and dump. However, we are now using this platform to allow our users to hold this token, and we can unlock some of the paid features on the site based on, for example, the amount held.

Additionally, the tipping feature is worth discussing. Previously, users on the forum would see interesting content and comment, "Thank you," which was a verbal expression. Now that we have a tipping mechanism, users can express their gratitude with real money.

At the same time, we also created a feature where you can include a memo when tipping, and the recipient will receive a message along with your tip. This message is off-chain and will be recorded in our system. For example, if A receives money from B, it can also include information about what A bought from B. This is recorded in our website's system.

Currently, whether you use PayPal or Stripe, the fees are typically between 2% to 5%. With blockchain, we can achieve fees that are approximately zero, with almost no loss in between.

Many of our users are independent developers who produce a lot of digital products. If we can create a digital store based on the existing system, I think it would be a very interesting endeavor.

Conclusion: The Web3 Experiment of Idealists

From selling a Bitcoin for 60 RMB in 2011 to issuing the V2EX token in 2025, Livid has witnessed the changes in the entire internet and blockchain industry over fourteen years. He did not chase trends or rush to commercialize; instead, he has consistently adhered to the original idea—making this community a place that programmers and designers truly need.

The story of V2EX tells us that truly valuable products are not created through marketing promotions but grow naturally from the real needs of users. When the network effect reaches critical mass, it becomes a unique existence that cannot be easily replaced.

In the wave of Web3, V2EX has chosen a different path. It is genuinely considering how to make blockchain technology serve the community and how to create real use cases for tokens. From registration thresholds to tipping systems, from digital stores to liquidity pools, every feature is designed based on the real needs of the community.

As he mentioned in the interview with the golf ball metaphor: when the ball falls into the sand trap, the important thing is not to complain about the ball being in the sand, but to see that there is a larger green next to the sand trap. In the world of Web3, V2EX has found its own green.

This is not just a story about technology and products; it is also a story about persistence and ideals. In this rapidly changing era, being able to stick to something for fourteen years while maintaining one’s original intention is an impressive achievement in itself.

Perhaps this is the greatest value of V2EX—it proves that idealists can also find their place in the business world and that truly valuable things can exist for a long time.

Disclaimer

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