Inside the community of early cryptocurrency investors, now multimillionaires, and how they manage newfound riches and the explosion of interest in the industry
This piece lands at the January 2018 peak of the first crypto boom, when Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen's reported 5.19B XRP tokens and 17% company stake briefly made him richer than Mark Zuckerberg on paper. The Times is profiling not just the money but the class it created: early holders whose wealth arrived faster than any infrastructure for managing it.
The related coverage traces what that class did next. Some converted windfalls into institutions — the Winklevoss twins built Gemini, Nifty Gateway and adjacent businesses ([[a:964958]]), while Multicoin Capital ran a $100M fund that beat bitcoin over 2017-2019 ([[a:950316]]). Others spent idiosyncratically, like Jeffrey Berns putting $300M into a blockchain-based community in Nevada ([[a:935164]]). The arc runs straight into the 2022 crypto winter, where Binance's Changpeng Zhao faced a regulatory crackdown as prices collapsed ([[a:980138]]) — the same fortune cycle, now stress-tested.
First-order effects
Larsen, the Winklevosses, Berns and their peers hold wealth denominated in volatile tokens rather than diversified assets, so their net worth swings with XRP and bitcoin prices day to day — Larsen's Zuckerberg-surpassing valuation evaporates the moment XRP retreats.
Sudden liquidity turns these holders into the industry's first source of venture capital: Berns deploys $300M into a Nevada blockchain community, and the Winklevosses roll exchange profits into Nifty Gateway and lending ventures.
Second-order effects
Professional vehicles emerge to manage this capital — Multicoin Capital's $100M fund shows millionaire money consolidating into hedge-fund structures that compete on returns against simply holding bitcoin.
As fortunes concentrate in founder hands, exchanges like Binance grow into the largest venues in the industry, which is precisely what draws the regulatory scrutiny Zhao faces by 2022 — personal wealth becomes a proxy for systemic exposure.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, crypto wealth institutionalizes: paper-rich founders become exchange operators, fund managers and investors, shifting the industry from hobbyist gains to a financial-services layer that survives individual token crashes.
Concentrated founder holdings keep colliding with securities law and public-market norms — the same legitimacy questions raised by Larsen's token stash resurface whenever a private holder's wealth rivals established tech billionaires.
The trend: Crypto's boom-cycle windfalls are repeatedly recycled into exchanges, funds and ventures, converting speculative token wealth into durable financial institutions between crashes.
“it was hard to separate the Amazons and Googles from the Pets.coms and eToys.” But as 99/00/01 taught us, that is what we must do. http://www.nytimes.com/...
There is something profoundly nauseating about this NYT depiction of the ‘cryptobro’ culture. All arrogance & a great freeride-to-riches focus. No one seems to care about building things that actually improve the world. https://www.nytimes.com/...
“Obviously the bubble's going to burst and everyone's going to need a lawyer” - the 22 year-old law student who started the Berkeley Law Blockchain group, 1 of only 2 women quoted, and by far, my favorite character in this story. http://www.nytimes.com/...
Bubble? What bubble? No bubble here at all. Zero bubbles. It's just that the crypto community needs its own rappers, like CoinDaddy, because other rappers don't understand the culture. That's all. Not a bubble though. Nope. http://www.nytimes.com/...
Hey @nytimes we'd love to bring you around @ConsenSys and talk about @ethereum4impact. Many of us are devoted to the technology for social reasons. Would be great to drive the conversation with us, not these “bros” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Congrats to crypto millionaire/MMA fighter/"vintage pornography enthusiast" @ByYourLogic on appearing in the NYT! http://nyti.ms/2DxRzWc pic.twitter.com/5pbJ00chR8
“When I meet people in the normal world now, I get bored... it's just a different level of consciousness. Sometimes I think about what would happen to the future if a bomb went off at one of our meetings... A bomb would set back civilization for years.” https://www.nytimes.com/..…
The wild success, exuberance, funniness and the personalities are all part of what's happened this year. This is not the one and only story forever but part of a project to document the start of a massive revolution (which will be cultural as much as technical)
This... “As a mixed martial arts. fighter, Mr. Buttram said he would fight for a couple hundred bucks, and worked security at a start-up, but his main hobbies were reading 4chan and buying vintage pornography, passions that exposed him to cryptocurrency.” https://www.nytimes.com/…
It's becoming way too hard to discern real-life from satire. To The Gorilla Channel, I add another case in point: I am 90% sure this is the NYT satirizing Silicon Valley bro culture. https://nyti.ms/2EDvQLK I mean, look at this paragraph. But then again... pic.twitter.com/0Z7Muud…
This is an incredible piece of writing. Cryptocurrency is the “gold standard” for millennials. I get annoyed with all the flashy speculation, but quieter narrative about people who've lost trust in society is heartbreaking. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Very Dot Com-ish article about Cryptocurrency. Lots of Mr Robot supporting cast characters, but I liked the guy who said “the technology still needs time to evolve.” https://nyti.ms/2EDvQLK
You really have to work for me to eyeroll harder at the New York Times than at Bitcoiners but they managed to achieve it: https://www.nytimes.com/... Take an editing pen and highlight all of the “Geeks are low status. Geeks are low status. Geeks are low status.” My count is 45.
This is a strange article, sort of like a Joshua Cohen novel in miniature, and not at all New York Timesy. Good for a dark laugh, perhaps: https://www.nytimes.com/... pic.twitter.com/nJ96PXUSr3
The attitudes reported here remind me of the Our Dumb Century headline before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. https://www.google.com/... nion.com/oct-22-1929-1819588356/ amp ... https://www.nytimes.com/...
The new cryptomillionaire crowd occupies a different spot on the cultural spectrum than the circa 2009 “web2.0” founder stereotype. More diverse backgrounds, spread out globally and very different worldview. https://www.nytimes.com/...
I respect some of the people featured in this article but I have to say this is not a good look for the community. I hope to see more articles about the tech and what is being built not about how much money people made and the crazy things they spend it on https://www.nytimes.com…
I also highlighted a ton of female leaders in the space who are doing actual great work, aka not people who are showing off with ugly sweaters and getting rich quick. But apprently that doesn't sell?
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is I'm a busy female CEO and why should I waste ~45 minutes talking to a journalist about the real technology and community spirit if this is the kind of article that is going to come out of it?
Crypto millionaires are looking to move to Puerto Rico — “He said his closest friends are moving to Puerto Rico to get around paying taxes” “They're going to build a modern-day Atlantis out there,” http://nyti.ms/2D0BQxP pic.twitter.com/COOpbdGXd3
Wow, I spoke to @NellieBowles for 45 mins all about the tech, community, and why this matters in the grand scheme of things. Wasn't expecting this at *all*.
The space is enormously skewed male, which is a problem everyone acknowledges and worries about (including you when I was asked about it) and is in the story
I wonder if blockchain stuff will have that same wild implosion that the web did in the early 2000s, leaving only believers, who release what users actually want six years later (and then increasing, endless consolidation). http://www.nytimes.com/...
It's a damn shame that the @nytimes uses its massive platform to highlight the most $$-obsessed, excessively arrogant and non-technically inclined or focused pockets of the rapidly growing blockchain and crypto community. http://www.nytimes.com/...