The Personalities are a Feature, Not a Bug

Crypto is a place for people who don't always fit in, and that's great

I went a little crazy over the last two years.

Let’s be honest here— we all did. I suppose in a way this is part of living in age I often call Gilded Age Two (I’m not creative enough to come up with a snazzy alternative name, so if you have one, please let me know). Just like the original Gilded Age, we live in a time where life is accelerating, tech is booming, and social unrest threads across everything. Up, down, left, right—it’s all a mess. And that was before the pandemic…

So I suppose in that way, it’s normal to feel a bit nuts.

In the depths of my quarantine-induced self reflection, I decided to finally learn more about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. Why not, right? People were getting rich off magic internet money in the middle of the chaos, and my natural reporter curiosity couldn’t resist taking a closer look. Journalists are weird like that. We tend to revel in the odd and off beat. We find comfort among people who didn’t like to do the usual.

And it didn’t take me long to find the personalities. I fell down the rabbit hole and they were there, waiting for me.

Truly, the personalities are some of the best parts of the Bitcoin revolution. I’m talking about a merry band of misfits who have somehow made the journey extremely entertaining. They’ve taken an abstract concept and turned it into a movement.

Let’s take a look.

Over there is a guy with a German accent who makes YouTube videos where he yells the entire time. Down the road is the early Bitcoiner with a penchant for loud suits with question marks all over them. Wait a few minutes, and the woman who walked away from her corporate job in order to vlog about cryptocurrency day trading shows up. Spend a few moments with her, and you’ll meet the YouTuber who likes to spend three or four hours a day livestreaming his channel while wearing Viking headgear. Hop over to Twitter and you’ll find people who make jokes about losing thousands of dollars in a single trade, and others who kid themselves about the ongoing debate about if crypto in a bull or bear market. When the market goes up, these folks make the memes. When the market goes down, they make more.

Lately, they’ve been busy making a lot of those memes.

But even with cryptocurrency going “mainstream”, the personalities show no sign of going away. I hope they never will. They are a feature, not a bug.

We needed them on this crazy ride.

The fact is, investing in crypto means stepping outside the mainstream. It’s not safe, it’s not usual, it’s not the kind of investment that you read about in books on basic finance and how to get rich the traditional way. People still scoff at it.

And then openly wonder if they're missing out getting rich.

When you look at history, the ones who “made it” were always the ones who the did things others were scared to try. They invented new weapons, or invested in companies, or set up steel mills. They invested risky real estate or bought stock in intrepid computer technology. They quit corporate jobs in favor of startups run out of West Coast garages.

They never played it safe. Crypto investors don’t either.

But the personalities sure make it a lot better, don’t you think?

The Crypto Connection is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to be financial advice. Please do your own research before investing in any asset class. Sara Celi is not a financial advisor, and holds several cryptocurrencies. To purchase her books on Amazon, please click here.