In Part 1, we detailed three of the different kinds of crypto OGs you might meet at an industry party.They were: (1) shadowy super coders and/or anon
In Part 1, we detailed three of the different kinds of crypto OGs you might meet at an industry party.
They were: (1) shadowy super coders and/or anon founders, (2) “reputable” and respected OG industry leaders like Vitalik Buterin and Brian Armstrong, and (3) the comeback OGs, who were trying to shake off the stink of a failed project.
This time around, we meet even more categories of crypto OGs, with insight from the insiders most familiar with them.
4. The “NeoGs” market makers and traders
There are a select few crypto players who joined the game late, yet they rose to prominence to become behemoths in terms of net worth and impact. Usually, these are savvy market makers and traders who are often mistaken for OGs.
Take, for example, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX trading exchange and quant trading firm Alameda Research. Amid the recent crypto collapses, he gained even greater prominence as he stepped in big to provide bailouts and minimize the contagions.
(Source: The Jax Jones and Martin Warner Show.)
Noobs may mistake SBF as an OG, but he only joined the industry in 2017. Bankman-Fried made his wealth from arbitrage crypto trading, which he leveraged to build his empire.
The 30-year-old is a self-made billionaire who is a regular in legacy financial media, invited to speak at all the top crypto conferences, and one of the default industry representatives weighing in on U.S. congressional hearings. His wardrobe seems to consist exclusively of FTX T-shirts.
SBF has famously stated that he does not necessarily believe in the future of any cryptocurrency, yet he sees them as attractive opportunities. Bottomline, he is the type who is in it “for the money” (but only for the purposes of altruistic donation at some later stage).
“I don’t think you can call those who joined in 2017 an OG,” says Darius Sit, founder of successful Singapore-based crypto trading firm QCP Capital, which he also founded that year.
“That’s my definition anyway. I think OGs are hard core believers who went all-in when nobody else was paying attention to the space, so that’s certainly way before 2017.”
Like SBF, Sit was also in crypto primarily to make money, and since its founding, QCP Capital has become one of the world’s larger crypto option trading firms with $1.5 billion in assets deployed back in 2021. Its
(Source: QCP Capital)
venture arm was an early investor in many prominent projects, such as Deribit, dYdX, Algorand, Tokocrypto and Nansen.
Judging from their successes, and the fact that the top three highest net worth in the cryptocurrency industry currently come from market-making businesses, one may wonder whether the winners in the industry are the savvier opportunists, instead of the holding believers.
Sit insists that market making is also a concrete use case and innovation of blockchain, instead of merely a money-making endeavor.
“I think Sam and I shared — and probably still share — very similar views, and maybe I can provide some nuance here. Many crypto or blockchain initiatives promise incredible things that may or may not happen. But what is very real to me and what I believe in is the crypto capital markets.”
“To some extent, this is nothing new,” he continues. “It is the same market structures and practices with a different underlying: crypto assets. At the same time, it is also completely different.”
“Crypto is not attached to any particular country or authority; it is a non-aligned asset class that is accessible to anyone from any jurisdiction. It is the only scalable financial ecosystem that is independent.”
He adds: “In a world where geopolitics has become increasingly unstable, I think that counts for something. I enjoy being part of this developing market.”
In the wake of this year’s macro sell-off and the liquidation of many Singapore-based whale trading firms and exchanges like Three Arrows Capital that sent shocks across the cryptocurrency market globally, QCP Capital has held its ground.
“We were always wary of the leverage and rehypothecation in the borrowing and lending markets, and so, we never participated in a big way. I did feel quite stupid at times, especially when folks around us were making billions from the balance sheet expansion and easy leverage. In the end, the choice to just focus on trading and developing the derivatives markets might not have been the most profitable, but it was the right one,” Sit comments.
At any networking party, you can find Sit having a quiet conversation outside with a couple of other people. “I don’t like crowds and prefer deep, quality conversations,” he says.
(Source: Herbertsim.com)
5. The flashy influencers and YOLO bros
Last but not least, influencers are the OGs most likely to throw a networking party…
cointelegraph.com