The 31 People You Meet In Crypto

I’m a crypto veteran. I heard of Bitcoin in 2011. I went to my first Bitcoin meet-up in 2013. My second one was yesterday. I bought my first crypto in January.

Yet, starting in late 2017, I’ve met some colorful crypto characters in the U.S., Canada, China, South Korea, France and more. Enjoy, with a grain of SALT.

BUYER TYPES

1. The Believer

A rare character not into speculation. This one has the best chances of actually having bought early and kept cool for years during the ups and downs. This bank-hating bodhisattva might be a millionnaire unless everything disappeared during one of the many crypto heist, or slowly spent on pizzas.Quote: ”I bought my first BTC in 2013. I tried to use it for a beer and failed.”

GameKyuubi was the first true HODLer2. The Hodler

Often by accident as the price is now below their purchase price. Mostly concerns entrants after the last Thanksgiving.Quote: “HODL!”

3. The Accidental Millionnaire

Bought crypto out of curiosity then forgot it for years, but didn’t lose their private key.Quote: “I don’t want people to know me for this. Or become a target.”

Don’t we all?4. The Early Seller

Made some money mining or holding, but should have kept at it and held.Quote: “I would have $10 million by now.”

5. The Alt-Gambler

Betting on smaller currencies often since ICO and hoping for a sudden boom, they are ready to hold for years.Quote: “10 times 10% chance of 1000x”

Recommended headgear6. The Crypto Messiah

Money is not a problem. It’s all about changing the world, economic democracy, equality, and partying in Phuket.Quote: “See you in Puerto Rico!”

BUSINESS TYPES

7. The Dealer

Selling picks and shovels to crypto fans. Mining rigs, cold storage, crypto exchanges to future contracts (disclosure: SOSV is the only investor in Bitmex). “Don’t get high on your own supply”, as they say.Quote: “I keep everything in fiat”.

8. The Mining Magnate

China is out. It’s all about Canada, Sweden and Iceland now, and ASICS or GPU, depending.Quote : “How much per MW?”

9. The Broker

Knows some amazing early stage startups and pre-ICO deals. You missed the first 3x bump in valuation but the ICO is coming and that’s a 10x minimum, and more if you hold! This round is mostly insiders but they can push to get you in. Don’t forget the 20% carry for this one-off syndicate.Quote: “It’s all MIT PhDs.”

FINANCE TYPES

10. The Finance Veteran

Knows the patterns and the game of capital formation, and how money moves.Quote: “Markets don’t work that way.”

11. The Cautious Investor

Bought crypto some time ago. Sells some from time to time.Quote: “I took some profit.”

12. The Technical Trader

Support, resistance lines, volume, volatility… the technical trader has figured it out.Quote: “My best trade was shorting Ripple. My worse was yesterday.”

Extra points when lines cross13. The Arbitrageur

Is looking at variations across platforms and countries to find an easy alpha. But if it were so easy, everyone would be doing it.Quote: “I’ll sell you Korean stuff below market price if you pay in any fiat except won.”

14. The ICO Investor

Will buy pre-ICO tokens of the most convincing projects at a discount, promote it, and sell most asap.Quote: “Tokens are more liquid than shares.”

MARKETER TYPES

The right swag for the trade15. The Crypto Expert

Has success secrets for free. Read the blog, get the book, join the webinar, you will know the next ICO hit to back.Quote : “Make 7 figures like I did on Wall Street and as an entrepreneur, but faster and with no work!”

16. The ICO Spin Artist

Is currently working on a blockchain project. It will ICO as soon as the white paper is ready; the white paper will be ready as soon as it has some convincing maths in it; the maths will be done as soon as someone is hired to do it.Quote: “The ICO is live in 6 weeks”

Prodeum was a pioneer17. The ICO CEO

Millions poured in within minutes. Build or walk away?Quotes: “We are hiring” or… “penis”

18. The Forkist (Forker? Forkster?)

Found a way to improve that other crypto tech, making it faster, cheaper, more secure, or consume les MW. The only thing it needs now is millions of people using it.Quote: “Wait for the airdrop!”

19. The Crypto Advisor

Facebook ads are out, but there are other ways. Pre-ICO with crypto whales, high-profile advisors, strategic investors… you’ll be covered. The 1-digit commission percentage, 5-digits symbolic upfront fee, and 6-digits lawyer costs are negligible compared to the 9-digits you’ll raise! Your car doors will finally open the right way.Quote: “We will have a formal structure soon.”

20. The Quasi-Official Certification Authority

It looks like the FCC but without the checks and balances. A stamp with its official-sounding name will save crypto investors the time it takes to read the Lite Pager.Quote: “See you in Puerto Rico!”

EXPERT TYPES

21. The Actual Expert

Writes software, loves the blockchain, knows core technicalities. Despairs at speculators and general ignorance.Quote: “I won second place at the first crypto hackathon.”

22. The (Eastern European?) Crypto Genius

Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Molvona … or maybe a second-generation? Impossible to remember where this one came from. Is the future a hard fork or an entirely new system? The family won’t tell, and restricted computer access to focus on high school.Quote: “I haven’t earned the right to release it yet.”

23. The Whistleblower

Knows a bubble and won’t be part of it.Quote: ‘Tulips.’

24. The Anti-Whistleblower

Knows a non-bubble.Quote: “If it were a real bubble, people would mortgage their house to buy.”

25. The Economist

Has learned things schools don’t teach. Can tie together ideas that look either like conspiracy theories or true insights.Quote: “Accounting for all externalities, crypto is still better than banks and printing fiat.”

26. The Selfless Educator

Hasn’t benefited the tiniest bit(coin) from the 10,000 hours spent educating others on crypto’s bits and (tulip) bulbs. Will be vindicated by an outpouring of crowd-generosity. Might end up losing one half in sketchy schemes, and the other from drinking.

POLITICAL TYPES

27. The Authoritarian Regulator

Like a benevolent parent, it won’t allow its citizens to trade crypto or do ICOs, to protect them from themselves. To defend the stability of its propped up currency, it will blame endlessly the three horsemen of the crypto apocalypse.Quote: “We prevent about market manipulation, illegal funds and speculation.”

28. The Crypto Anarchist Regime

Wants to create its own token based on a local resource. A bit like a future maybe? But I’m not a finance guy.Quote: “Crypto is freedom!”

29. The Global Finance Organization

Not invited to the party. Determined to spoil the fun. Its newspeak name gives gravitas; its finance powers silence governments it ‘helped’.Quote: “Regulation is inevitable.”

RANDOM TYPES

Each girls’s mask sports their totem token30. The Expectedly Unexpected Japanese Thing

Japan lives in a different reality, that sometimes intersects with ours. Here is the Crypto Money Girls pop group (?).Quote: “#ETH”

31. The Crypto Comedian

Like cryptic humor? Tokens of appreciation can be sent to:

QR Code for BTC

BTC: 19WxrPYzzhm1GtbsRZAxXvGVE7FEU3Z6rN

ETH: 0x61b031a687b091AfcA1698615A75407E113edD8c

Thanks to AH, AL, EL, ER, GG, GP, GV, ID, IL, JA, JT, LB, MF, NH, NM, SC, SG, SL, TC, WB and others for the inspiring conversations.

Thanks to TwoBitIdiot and his 95 Crypto Theses for proving outrageously long lists can be interesting too. Thanks to tRoU dU cULz’ hiDEouT for showing that it was ok to make fun of geeky stuff in a geeky way.

Ben Joffe (@benjaminjoffe / ben@hax.co) is a newly-minted after-hours ‘crypto expert’, who knows people and likes stories. He will never reveal how much crypto he holds, nor how much he paid for it. During the day, he is a partner at HAX, the most active investor in early stage hardware startups, part of SOSV, the world’s first program-based seed fund. Ben is also an occasional angel investor, a guest writer for Forbes, Techcrunch and VentureBeat on hardware, Asia and venture capital, and an in-demand speaker with over 200 talks across 30 countries.

The 31 People You Meet In Crypto was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.