Exiting the High Finance Rat Race for Crypto

A little more than a year ago to the date I read these words from my now colleague Jack Purdy:

It was a call to action.

At the time I read it I had just turned 23 and was slavishly working another 100 hour week in investment banking. The words couldn't have felt more targeted.

Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

I first fell down the crypto rabbit hole during the fall of my senior year in 2017, after brushing off the space for years. For most of my college career I had been dead set on a career in investment banking (and eventually private equity), grinding my way through internships to secure a full time stop at a top tier shop. It was only during my Junior year investment banking internship in summer 2017 that my interest in crypto was piqued by a headline stating that something called “Ethereum” was up 2,000%+ on the year that I decided I needed to take another look at the space.

I began trading with the money I earned from my internship and learning as quickly as possible to get up to speed on a space that seemed to be moving at a million miles an hour. Over the course of my senior year I began obsessing over it, pretty much focusing 100% of my free time (when I wasn’t hanging out) learning about the space, first starting with Bitcoin. I had not once before questioned what money was, how it worked, why it existed, what was its purpose, or what was wrong with it. I had just always assumed money worked. With Bitcoin I was beginning to understand and question a fundamental building block of civilization and I became hooked.

However, none of the above was enough for me to consider leaving a lucrative career in investment banking, and hopefully private equity afterwards, for what seemed like the wild west. It was only months later after I learned about Ethereum and became convinced that crypto somehow went even beyond money that I decided I needed to work in the industry. With the backdrop of declining trust in institutions across the western world, the idea that crypto could provide the basis for new institutional arrangements fit for the digital age was exciting.

Escaping High Finance

By the end of my senior year in 2018, with the market in free fall, I began exploring the opportunity set within crypto. Though because it was unclear what non-technical positions were available and I was set to start full-time in investment banking in July I figured it would take a while.

Over the next 12 months I continued to study crypto and network with as many people in the industry as possible with the limited spare time I had. But networking was simply not enough.

Eventually I came across the opportunity to volunteer in Messari’s community analyst program, which provided me the opportunity both to contribute, learn, and prove my chops in the space. I started with basic resource pages for Messari and a couple asset pages. Soon I realized the importance of the second thing that stood out to me from Jack’s piece, quoted from TBI’s The Apprentice: Crypto:

Through writing, I realized the holes in my thinking and truly began to understand crypto. It’s easy for an idea to sound perfect in your head. It’s a completely different thing to articulate the idea on paper. I’d studied Finance and Computer Science in college and had about a year of investment banking under my belt at this point, but crypto truly was truly a new ball game.

The Messari community analyst was the closest thing I got to a crypto bootcamp. Regardless of whether I ended up joining Messari at the tail end of the program, I knew it would help me brand myself and better navigate the space.

Eventually though, I got to know the Messari team, and not long after I ended up joining Messari full-time in October 2019. I’d finally left the dark side.

Why should you care?

If you are anything like how I was before I joined Messari, you’re probably itching to get started in crypto, but uncertain over how to get in the game. The community analyst program makes it simple.

Come join the team and start leveling up.

The next mega crypto bull market has just begun and the opportunity to learn, network, and get your name out there is here.

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