Today we’re doing something a little different, talking with one of our readers, someone who has come out ahead through crypto investing — though not without some stomach churning reversals along the way.
Why it matters: Crypto is often spoken of as a democratizing opportunity, yet regular people seldom see the stories of non-professionals placing bets in the space. Here’s one.
Details: Canadian marketing technologist Darragh Grove-White is ahead, but not without taking some painful hits.
“I made many mistakes. He tells Axios that he’s had cryptocurrency exchanges take his money.
He was among many Canadians who lost their luck when Gerald Cotten, the founder of QuadrigaCX, died (?). India.
State of play: Grove-White is one of the fortunate ones. According to his account, he has made a complete turnaround since Quadriga’s loss. He’s up around 11x on his principal, though there have been wild oscillations in that number recently.
Axios has verified the success of his portfolio.
The scoreboard: He has invested in over 180 coins, his first three purchases being bitcoin, Monero (a privacy coin — that trade is still down) and Verge, a coin with salacious affiliations.
He said, “I’ve had some that did really well and even less that I thought would do well.”
The biggest loss was a token that was the right idea (blockchain finance), but the wrong company at the wrong time. His biggest win was a lucky guess about which solution to fix Ethereum’s speed problems would click with users first.
Context: Although he only became interested in crypto during the bear market year of 2018, he did have some advantages. He is a lot more technical than the average person, given his day job.
That has worked to his advantage. He explained, “I’m just super curiosity.” It’s not enough to just read charts in crypto. He contends that one must get into crypto to fully understand it.
Be smart: He has been in the business for four years and sees new people arrive in waves. You can spot the new investors on Twitter and Discord — they are always looking to make a quick buck.
“This most recent cohort of noobs, their on-ramp was the Wall Street Bets experience,” he said. “Meme coins are a popular investment option for a lot of the n00bs. They make it seem a joke to invest in meme coins.
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