In the crypto world, people come and go. Have you ever thought about where the people who left the crypto world went?

With this question in mind, we interviewed many former industry insiders and received various answers: studying abroad, getting married and having children, lying down, AI startups, selling insurance, technology agriculture...

Leaving here does not mean not holding crypto assets, but no longer working in the crypto industry. Some people earn enough to retire and live a flat life; some leave due to the bear market; some are still unemployed...

When the gears of the encryption cycle start turning, everyone is swept forward and has no choice.

What are the old folks in the cryptocurrency world doing?

In 2011, there was a major event that influenced the historical course of Chinese cryptocurrency: the community "Babbitt" was established.

The two founders of Babbitt, Chang Qia and QQagent (Wu Jihan), are well-known in the industry. In fact, there is another founder - financial writer Lao Duan.

In 2011, Lao Duan wrote several articles related to Bitcoin, including "What can appreciate 3,000 times in a year" and "Bitcoin: Great Innovation or Giant Bubble". In July 2012, Lao Duan established the Bitcoin Fund "Lao Duan Bitcoin No. 1", which is also the first Bitcoin fund in China.

A few months later, the Cyprus banking crisis broke out, and Bitcoin soared more than 10 times in 8 months. The surge in price put Lao Duan under tremendous "psychological pressure". Under the pressure of cashing out, in April 2013, Lao Duan chose to liquidate the Bitcoin fund in advance. He believed that the rise of Bitcoin had come to an end.

In November 2013, five months after Lao Duan liquidated the Bitcoin fund, Bitcoin soared again to everyone's surprise. At this time, Lao Duan, who "missed the opportunity", gradually transformed from a Bitcoin evangelist to a Bitcoin critic.

“The greatest value of Bitcoin at present is that it satisfies the Chinese people’s fantasy of ‘getting rich overnight.’”

At this point, Lao Duan parted ways with the Bitcoin world, and then settled in the stock circle, becoming a stock analyst, and published books such as "Investment Magic Book", "Positive Energy Investment", and "Actually You Don't Understand Women Yet".

In March 2021, Lao Duan mentioned "Bitcoin" again.

Lao Duan said that at the most he owned four-digit bitcoins, which are now worth billions of RMB, but he sold most of them after making dozens of times the profit. However, he still has a three-digit "fraction" left, but these bitcoins are all in a bankrupt exchange - Mt. Gox.

Also for Babbitt, after Wu Jihan and Lao Duan left, Changqia found new partners: Song Huanping, Chen Yurong, and Lang Yu.

Song Huanping’s former title was “co-founder of Babbitt”. Today, his identity label as the founder of Happy Tiger Capital and the number one angel investor in the catering industry, he has invested in Lelecha, Chen Xianggui, Hutouju, Jasmine Milk White, and Chef Hu Zi.

In 2013, Song Huanping learned about Bitcoin in a QQ group, and later met Chang Qian through a friend's introduction. He then joined 8btc and participated in the commercialization process. However, this journey only lasted for 4 months.

In early 2015, with the first pot of gold earned from the cryptocurrency circle, Song Huanping chose to leave the cryptocurrency circle and turned into the investment circle, targeting the catering industry and established Happy Tiger Capital.

In an interview with the media in 2017, Song Huanping expressed his dissatisfaction with the cryptocurrency circle, and even said that he was "a little sad":

“A round of surge is followed by a new round of attention, which then quickly cools down, until the next time it breaks through a price that was previously considered crazy, it will attract another round of greater attention.”

“Bitcoin is a good thing, but the cryptocurrency world is too dirty.”

Since the advent of Bitcoin, it has changed the fate of many grassroots in more than ten years. The former veterans in the currency circle have all "retired" and faded out of the public eye.

An “old man” who entered the Bitcoin community in 2013 told TechFlow that the old people in the cryptocurrency circle he knows have either gone overseas or returned to their families to take care of their children every day. Some have become obsessed with “immortality” and invested in peptide-related industries.

Once upon a time, Li Xiaolai, known as the "richest man in Bitcoin", was regarded as the spokesperson of the currency circle. Until he gradually faded out of the encryption industry after the recording gate incident in 2018. In addition to writing books as usual, the most important thing for Li Xiaolai after leaving the currency circle is to "give birth to a bunch of children." Li Xiaolai, who has become a father, now has a new identity - educator.

After 2022, Li Xiaolai launched the "Family Growth Annual Community" (1999/year), and in 2023 launched a new course "Li Xiaolai Talks about Family Education in the AI ​​Era" on Getui, which received widespread acclaim.

Miners lying flat

Once upon a time, miners were regarded as standing at the top of the cryptocurrency food chain. With the "ban", Bitcoin mining completely "broke up" with China. So, where did the miners who no longer mine go?

Former miners interviewed by TechFlow told TechFlow that the mining group is also extremely complex. For example, large and small miners have different decisions and ideas.

Some large miners choose to go overseas with mining machines and their physical bodies to continue participating in mining, while others choose to transform to AI to provide computing power support for other companies.

Most of the interviewees mentioned the same words - lying down, having savings, and not wanting to work, so they eat, drink, play, and travel to stay healthy.

Miner Wang Lei is now in a state of lying down. Having suffered losses in the cryptocurrency circle, he has become extremely cautious. He does not make venture investments, does not contact people in the cryptocurrency circle, and uses ETH for Satking to obtain a risk-free annualized return of nearly 4%. The annual income of nearly 80 ETH can fully cover his daily expenses.

This is already a good "ending". After a bull market, countless small and medium-sized miners have gone bankrupt.

"In the last market, many small miners got carried away and failed to cash out in time. Some of them went from driving Porsches to driving Didi when the market was over," said Li Xiaoming, a former miner.

Many miners invested blindly during the bull market and were trapped by various primary and secondary projects. At the same time, they encountered the collapse of FTX/PayPal, making miners also part of the rights protection army.

In Yunnan, Liang You, a female miner who joined the Bitcoin community in 2012, chose to engage in organic technology agriculture after the "mining ban".

She enjoys raising shrimps, other seafood, and orchards.

Shrimp raised in pomelo

After some research and thinking, Liangyou believes that in the current domestic economic environment, agriculture is a relatively stable and long-term business. In addition to science and technology agriculture, Liangyou will also invest in other real industries.

Although former miners like Liang You no longer mine, they still pay attention to trends in the crypto market. They have a common goal - to hoard coins.

After the entrepreneur leaves

Before entering the cryptocurrency circle, Saul had been investing in the Internet.

In the summer of 2021, the emergence of STEPN made Saul pay attention to blockchain games as a possible direction for the future development of the gaming industry.

This time he did not invest in a company directly, but chose to start his own business. Compared with young entrepreneurs who have been involved in the encryption industry from the beginning, he believes that his advantage is that he has experienced a complete cycle and has richer product and user experience.

So, Saul launched a similar movement to earn project with reference to STEPN, and obtained investments from several industry VCs.

In the hot small cycle of "x-to-earn", Saul's project gained wide attention in the early stage by virtue of various operational activities and linkage with some public chain ecosystems. The sales of NFT props were gratifying, but like the fireworks in an instant, the beauty is always short-lived. The collapse of STEPN running shoes brought the entire "x-to-earn" track into a cold winter.

Saul's project failed to survive the crypto winter, and after a year, Saul disbanded the team.

Saul attributed the failure partly to "cycles". "Web3 entrepreneurship has obvious cycles, which are shorter than traditional finance. Web3 is a more retail and irrational market." The more important problem is that it is difficult for Web3 to acquire and retain real users, especially when the market is unstable, and user growth is slower than expected.

After liquidating the project, Saul left the cryptocurrency industry and chose to join the hot AI wave and continue his entrepreneurship.

In Saul's opinion, the crypto industry and AI are two completely different industries, and the underlying logic of the services they provide is different. The AI ​​industry is more technology-driven, while the crypto industry is still capital-driven, and blockchain products still do not solve real-life problems very well.

However, he will continue to pay attention to the crypto industry in the future, because he feels that there are many areas where AI and the crypto industry can be combined, especially in areas such as games. One day in the future, he may even return to the cryptocurrency circle with a new identity and attitude.

“ Life is an experience. If I could start over again, I would definitely choose to start a business in the cryptocurrency world.”

Saul is just a microcosm of the "Web3 to AI" trend in the crypto bear market. Will Wang, partner of Generative Ventures, said, "So far, all the mobile Internet portfolios I have invested in before, which have turned to the so-called Web3 direction, have now returned to AI."

In June 2023, Babbitt, the oldest encrypted media in China, announced its full shift to the AI ​​track. Babbitt founder Chang Qia also changed his identity and title to the founder of Wujie AI, becoming the Chinese version of Midjourney.

A new question arises: When a new round of crypto bull market comes, will the entrepreneurs who left return?

Practitioners come and go

The flow of personnel in the crypto industry often fluctuates with the bull and bear cycles. When the bull market comes, everyone returns, and when the bear market comes, they disperse quickly.

Xiaojun originally worked in a well-known VC in the industry as a post-investment worker. Unexpectedly, she received a "layoff notice" at the beginning of this year. After repeated consideration, Xiaojun did not continue to look for a job in the industry, but resolutely left the cryptocurrency circle and devoted herself to a local medical industry.

For Xiaojun, who comes from a wealthy family, work itself is not that important. She has a more important mission at the moment - to find a partner and then get married. Working in the crypto industry seems to cause some trouble for her in dating.

There are many people like Xiaojun who have been laid off and changed careers or are unemployed. While the crypto bear market from 2022 to 2023 has hit investors' wallet balances hard, it has also set off a wave of layoffs in the currency circle. Whether it is exchanges, VCs or project parties, they all choose to "lay off employees" to reduce costs and survive the bear market.

Antoniayly runs a Web3 job search and recruitment community, and she has a clear sense of the unemployment wave in the bear market of the cryptocurrency circle.

"The job pool grows by about a dozen people every week, but it's good if there's a new job posting every week. I check overseas recruitment websites every week, and there aren't many companies hiring. Most of them are big European and American companies posting job requirements, but it's hard to say how many of them are real HCs."

Leo, an entrepreneur who once posted a job opening, told TechFlow, “As soon as I posted the job opening, I received a large number of resumes, some of which came from applicants with excellent backgrounds.” In his opinion, this is not a problem unique to the crypto industry, but rather that the overall environment is not good. He also received a large number of resumes from people with backgrounds in large Internet companies, and many of them want to join Web3 because the Internet industry is more tiring and more competitive.

Whether it is Web2 or Web3, everyone is looking for a way out amid the wave of layoffs.

Xiao V, who majored in journalism, once wrote reports on fintech for a leading technology media. In 2018, he joined a blockchain media as the chief writer and "entered the circle" by accident. Xiao V had no illusions of becoming rich overnight, but simply found it a new field that interested him.

At the end of 2019, at the invitation of a large Internet company, Xiao V chose to "quit" the cryptocurrency circle and went to an Internet company to "change the environment" and engage in brand marketing-related work. Xiao V soon felt the unfriendly environment of the Internet workplace. First, the overall downward trend, and second, the 35-year-old age crisis.

"In a big company, I feel like a screw in a machine. I don't have much room to develop myself or feel valuable, and I don't have the freedom I have in the media."

In mid-2023, amid the layoffs at large companies, Xiao V took the initiative to receive the "optimization gift package" and began to embrace a new field - insurance broker.

"From my observation, I feel that this is a very promising industry. Once a country's per capita GDP reaches a certain inflection point, the overall insurance depth will increase. Some young people in China now have a completely different view of insurance than before."

Another reason for choosing to be an insurance broker is that Xiao V believes that experience accumulated in the insurance industry itself is very helpful for career development. Today's insurance products are complex enough, involving not only knowledge about the product itself, but also knowledge related to law and medicine. This industry is not as age-discriminatory as the Internet, and many successful insurance brokers take insurance as a lifelong career.

Recently, Xiao V will join another large Internet company and make it his main job, while continuing to work as an insurance broker as a side job.

Coincidentally, the author noticed that many Hong Kong friends who used to work in the cryptocurrency circle have started the "Hong Kong Insurance" sales model in their circle of friends since 2023, and either joined insurance companies full-time or became licensed managers.

In 2023, with the resumption of customs clearance, Hong Kong's new Web3 policy, and the relaxation of the High Talent & Outstanding Talent Scheme, a large number of mainland personnel and funds have poured into Hong Kong. Applying for Hong Kong identity, starting a business in Hong Kong, and buying Hong Kong insurance have become the "To Do List" of many crypto practitioners in 2023, and have also spawned a wave of wealth opportunities.

At the end of the interview, we usually ask a question, “Would you be willing to return to crypto?”

Almost everyone answered that they were willing, and most of them talked about the most attractive point of the cryptocurrency world, which is the state of distributed remote work and greater personal freedom.

Coco left the cryptocurrency circle in 2019 and joined a large Internet company, and returned in 2022. In her opinion, the crypto industry is much easier than working in an Internet company, so that she has time to start a side business. Secondly, the crypto industry will also change a person's mentality and expectations.

“Losing money doesn’t matter. Once you make a little quick money, it’s hard to leave completely,” Coco said.