Journey into the Cryptoverse
How I got into crypto, why I stayed and how I got a full-time job in the space.
The lost value investor
March 2020. It was the last stretch of university, final exams were around the corner and graduation was fast approaching. I had secured a full-time offer at a fast growing e-commerce company in SEA after being converted once my internship ended. Not needing to apply for jobs gave me pockets of time to do what I enjoy — reading about new ideas, start-ups and things to invest in.
At the same time, Covid-19 started spreading, stocks were crashing and the economy in shambles. The Fed started printing money at astronomical speeds and the markets quickly rebounded back to all time highs.
I was raised as a value investor. The only famous person in finance that my dad knew was Warren Buffet and value investing was all I knew growing up. I watched countless interviews, read “The intelligent investor” when I was 17 and deeply believed that dollar cost averaging the S&P was the best way to invest.
With indexes at ATHs, P/S multiples hovering at ~40–100x for tons of tech stocks, it was impossible to find a value play. My safe haven, the S&P itself started to seem.. lackluster. Many companies in the S&P are legacy companies that have done well in the last 30 years but are unlikely to stay relevant in the next 30. I was lost. It felt like everything I learnt and knew about investing was as outdated as the business modules I took in University (I majored in Accounting & Finance).
Down the rabbit hole
“Why don’t you take a look at Bitcoin?” — Kokkin (Close friend)
I was skeptical at first. All I knew about Bitcoin was the 2017 boom and bust. Everything about it went against every fiber of my value investing being. I took another look at the tried and true asset classes.
- Stocks: Fundamentally strong tech companies were trading at multiples that would give Benjamin Graham a heart attack.
- Real estate: Rising as fast as stocks were
- Gold/Commodities: Maybe. Would still prefer to invest in companies than a commodity
None of them made much sense to invest in so I decided to give crypto a chance. I spent the next 2 weeks reading as much as I could to try and understand this nascent asset class. I checked out the Bitcoin & Ethereum whitepaper, read Ark Invest’s thesis on Bitcoin, watched tons of ELI5 YouTube videos and read medium articles to understand blockchain technology. My conclusion: Bitcoin > Gold and Ethereum might be what powers the internet of the future (akin to AWS today).
Discovering decentralized applications (dApps) unlocked a whole new dimension. They were essentially businesses, companies, teams of people building what they hope would become world changing protocols. I started hitting my stride, my years of reading about start-ups, founders, businesses were not for naught. While I was still slow to fully comprehend the underlying technology and technicalities, understanding the potential use cases, addressable market and drawing parallels to existing companies came naturally to me.
- DeFi = Fintech 2.0
- NFTs = Tokenized assets
- DAOs = Future corporations, Co-ops
- P2E Gaming = Gaming but you own your in game assets
I was sold. The future that crypto enables made more sense compared to the existing world we live in. Ownership, more equitable distribution of value, immutability, ability to authenticate, censorship resistance — are all things that are lacking in Web2 but abundant in Web3. The worst part about Web2 is that we have accepted the status quo as the only way forward. Our mental models of how the internet should be were shaped by the business models of current internet giants. We are the products, not owners, not even truly consumers. Web3 flips that dynamic on it’s head and changes the incentive structures. Users are simultaneously owners and have the ability to extract some of the value that they create. It challenges everything we know and forces us to think using first principles instead of accepting the status quo.
It’s been several months since I first dived in and was working full time at the e-commerce firm. I enjoyed my work and my colleagues were the best colleagues I could ever ask for but nothing excited me more than reading about a new protocol or new concept in Web3. I was spending all of my free time immersing myself in the space, Netflix was replaced by YouTube explanations about crypto, music replaced by podcasts and Twitter became my go-to social media platform.
The more I read, the more I understood and the more I wanted to onboard friends into the space. However, I soon realized that it was harder than I thought. Crypto felt like a scam to most, few understood the real world applications and potential that the space has. It didn’t help that crypto is highly technical and the usage of jargon is rampant in the space. Having to repeat explanations about crypto to multiple groups of friends, it dawned on me that there’s a huge need for educators. That revelation, coupled with my desire to give back to the crypto twitter community, gave me the push I needed to start writing in public.
Writing in public
August 26 2021. It’s been more than a year since I first gave crypto a shot and the day I sent out my first thread as IdeasInAJiffy (now themlpx — my initials). I started sharing my thoughts, writing threads about various Web3 concepts (P2E games, DAOs, NFTs), and building idea legos by replying to tweets from the many giga minds in the space.
Writing soon took up a considerable portion of my time. I was sacrificing sleep to write Twitter threads but was never more energized and inspired in my life. Getting a job in Web3 was something I didn’t really think about, mostly due to a huge misconception I had.
To get a job in Web3, you either need to know how to code or be good enough to get into a VC
I did accounting and finance, barely able to string together basic Python/SQL, come from a non-target school, middle income family with no network, there’s no way I break into Web3.
Web3 natives are probably laughing at how Web2 this sounds but that was what I believed at that point in time. I was content with just writing on Twitter and sharing my thoughts, thinking that that was as far as my contribution to the space would go.
The turning point
Carra Wu (Investor at A16z) wrote a thought provoking thread about Web3 native business models and I shared my thoughts by commenting without expecting to get a reply or any attention. An hour later, I had tons of Twitter notifications and realized that she had quoted my reply and various people had commented as well. That led to my discovery of 0xjim’s profile and he had this tweet pinned to his profile and “@ScribeDAO creator” in his bio.
That was the sign the universe gave me.
I sent him a DM and started checking ScribeDAO out. Jim graciously responded with a ton of his old threads about breaking into Web3 even if you can’t code (compilation of them here) and suggested I join ScribeDAO. I quickly found ways to get involved in the DAO as a scribe, summarizing popular content and as a community manager, doing up a smoother onboarding flow for new joiners.
Spending more time on Twitter also allowed me to stumble upon various job postings (almost every project is hiring on the protocol’s website itself, VCs also post openings for their portfolio companies) and Web3 job boards — Crypto job list, Gabby’s Web3 Job Board. I started sending out applications to various firms for research/content based roles, using my Twitter feed as my resume.
The offer
After a couple of weeks of sending out applications, I was fortunate enough to get an interview with Nansen for their Data Journalist role and eventually received an offer(they’re still hiring btw). The people I interviewed with were some of the nicest and warmest people I’ve met and any nerves I had before the interview started quickly dissipated once the conversations started.
It’s been more than a month since I’ve gotten the offer and even though I’m officially starting tomorrow, a part of me is still in shock. This opportunity is not lost on me and I couldn’t be happier to be able to fully dive into Web3 with a team as good as Nansen.
Closing thoughts
Web3/Crypto is growing exponentially and there’s a ton of room for non-technical hires. Educators, marketers, product managers, community managers, research analyst, game economist, UIUX designers etc.
If you’re new, take it slow. Find out which segment you’re most passionate about (DeFi, NFTs, Social tokens, Creator economy, DAOs) and what roles align with your skill sets and interest. Get involved with relevant DAOs and communities, start writing in public and don’t be afraid to share your thoughts.
If you’re neck deep in the space and have already done all of the above but are hesitant to make the leap into Web3 full time, just do it. You only regret the shots you don’t take and you can always go back to a Web2 job if things don’t work out.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” — Steve Jobs
Looking back my journey so far, it’s clear to me that I’ve been extremely blessed and fortunate to get to where I am. For me, the something I trust in is God (I’m Christian) and for everyone that has made it this far, find your something and make leaps. Optimize for regret minimization with the understanding that you likely regret the chances you didn’t take than the failed ones that you took.
If you enjoyed the article, give me a follow on Twitter, DMs are always open if you want to chat!
