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 a lot of mistakes, for sure. He tells Axios that he’s had cryptocurrency exchanges take his money.
He was one of many Canadians out of luck when the founder of the exchange QuadrigaCX, Gerald Cotten, died (?) in 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. Although there have been some wild fluctuations in that number, he’s now up about 11x over his principal.
Axios has confirmed the success of his portfolio.
Scoreboard: He invested in more than 180 coins. His first three purchases were bitcoin, Monero (a privacy cryptocurrency — that trade is still down), and Verge, which has shady affiliations.
He said, “I’ve had some that did really well and even less that I thought would do well.”
The largest loss was caused by a token that was right in its idea (blockchain financing), but was wrong 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: While he only got into crypto in 2018 (a bear market year), he had some advantages. He is a lot more technical than the average person, given his day job.
It has worked in his favor. “I’m just super curious,” he explained. In crypto, it’s not enough just to read and watch charts. A person needs to get in to understand it, he contends.
Be smart: He has been in the business for four years and sees new people arrive in waves. The new investors are easy to spot on Twitter and in the Discord channels — they are always looking for the quick buck.
He said, “This latest cohort of noobs was their on-ramp the Wall Street Bets experience.” “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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