My 4 Months in the Cryptocurrency Circle: I Thought I Could Make 100 Million, But I Was Laid Off

Produced by/ Blockchain Truth Self-narration/ Lao Liu Editor/ He Shulong

Before entering the cryptocurrency world, I was an Internet elite. In 2004, I graduated from a prestigious domestic university and joined Baidu as a fresh graduate as a product manager. After working at Baidu for 5 years, I moved to Alibaba and became a high-level manager through my own efforts.

In 2015, I left Alibaba and participated in the creation of an Internet company, which is now valued at around 10 billion US dollars, and I still have some shares. Before leaving this company, I had an annual salary of one million, and my position was SVP (Senior Vice President). I had more than 50 subordinates and my own independent and spacious office . Although the work pace in the Internet industry is fast and stressful, the benefits are equal.

I had never traded in cryptocurrencies or stocks before, so it was really an accident that I entered the crypto world. In May 2018, a very young friend who made a lot of money in the crypto world, Xiao Chen, found me and recommended virtual currency and blockchain to me. Although Xiao Chen was young, he was a genius in technology. After listening to his recommendation, I vaguely felt that blockchain technology would have great social value in the future. In addition, the business of my original company was relatively stable, so I also wanted to come out and take a look, so I jumped into the crypto world blindly.

Of course, it is also because of the huge business opportunities and benefits. This industry has experienced two good market conditions in the past year: one was before 1994, when ICO was not banned and it was very easy to issue coins and make money; the other was after 1994, when many projects born with the rise in coin prices also developed well. Therefore, I think that most people who entered the coin circle this year came for the benefits.

With Xiao Chen's introduction, I joined a blockchain company as a partner. The company's CEO is a returnee with a very solid background and qualifications, and is also a well-known figure in the "cryptocurrency poker". I had a very good chat with him at the time. The person in charge of our technical team is also quite experienced. Although we all work in a shabby and old office in Wangjing, I feel that the future is bright.

Compared with the last company, my annual salary has dropped by 1/3, but I still have a lot of original currency rights. According to the CEO's plan, we will issue coins and list them on exchanges within 3 months. By then, the coins in my hands may be worth a lot of money. At that time, I thought: people in the currency circle are so low-class, but everyone can make a lot of money. There is no reason why an elite team like us cannot succeed.

We are working on a project related to exchanges. We have made many improvements to address some of the pain points in current virtual currency transactions. The business logic is excellent and has been recognized by many people.

After I joined the company, the CEO urged me to recruit people and expand the team. I worked day and night to recruit people and built a team in a very short time. Some of the employees were my former subordinates. They had very good offers in their hands, but I snatched them to the cryptocurrency circle.

I said to them, “It’s too slow to make money working in other industries. If you come to the cryptocurrency world, there’s a very high chance that you will achieve financial freedom.” Looking back on that time, there was a gleam in our eyes, and we thought that good luck was not far away.

Issuing coins and listing on exchanges are our goals

After the white paper was written, our fundraising work began. The CEO planned to raise 30,000 Ethereums, with a total value of about 100 million RMB.

In order to cooperate with the financing, we began to conduct intensive media publicity. There are countless self-media in the cryptocurrency circle. We use them to package the founder and build momentum for the project. But we don’t have to spend a penny, because the CEO is a golden signboard. A lot of self-media are queuing up for interviews, and a lot of conferences are queuing up for invitations. Of course, like other cryptocurrency projects, we will give our tokens to the self-media who help us, but these tokens have no value before they are listed on the exchange. Those who help us are looking forward to the day when the tokens are listed on the exchange with us. It can be said that we are all in the same boat.

We worked hard for a while, but found that financing was not as easy as we thought. In theory, the CEO's appeal is still very strong, but after all, the overall environment is not good, the price of coins is falling every day, and the ICO failure rate is getting higher and higher, so many investment institutions have stopped looking at projects. Several of our core executives are looking for money outside every day. I talked to more than 50 investment institutions I know, and most of the investors' feedback was: You are great, but we are not going to invest in new projects anymore.

The feeling of failure is strong.

As a result, only a very small number of people transferred coins to us. If we calculated, the total value of these coins was less than 5 million RMB. Without raising funds, the project would have no budget, and it would be impossible to list on the exchange. All our plans were about to collapse.

As time went by, we started to become like ants on a hot pot, eager to seize every possible opportunity. Our executives can be seen at almost all blockchain conferences. What I remember most clearly is that in August, a summit held abroad originally invited Huobi and some big names in the circle to attend, but none of them went that day. The reason was very simple. Two days before the meeting, many self-media accounts were blocked, which was a signal of stricter supervision.

The scene was too bad. In the bear market, the organizers relied on selling speakers to make money, but they didn't sell many seats. The investors who came to the conference only gave speeches and didn't invest in projects. After the conference, everyone left, and they didn't talk about the industry or cooperation like before.

Several projects I know of also told me that they had stopped all promotion and operations during those two days. The rest were all shifting positions, and their chat tools changed from WeChat to Bullet Messenger and WhatsApp.

My hunch is that the cryptocurrency world is going to be in trouble.

I have been in the Internet industry for more than ten years and have experienced a lot.

My judgment on the cold winter was that a number of projects would die, and those who survived would be the winners. But I didn’t expect that our CEO didn’t think so.

In early September, the CEO called the core executives together for a meeting, and the core message was that we should persuade some of our employees to quit, of course, without any compensation. I felt particularly sorry for the former subordinates who followed me. The more they cooperated, the more guilty I felt.

That day, I suddenly felt very disappointed and exhausted . I told the CEO that I would leave, and he agreed without any persuasion. I understand him. Giving up or escaping is fine, but he admitted defeat.

In fact, we don’t have to do this. The company still has businesses that can make money: quantitative trading and over-the-counter trading. Of course, any business is not easy to do in a bear market, and these are means of survival in the cold winter.

The cryptocurrency world is approaching dusk

The CEO's insecurity may be greater than mine. After all, he is a poker player. When seeking self-protection, he even considers leaving the country. In the past six months, many people in the cryptocurrency circle have had knives put to their necks, and some have even had their necks chopped off.

I am quite self-disciplined and basically don't speculate in cryptocurrencies, so I have never lost money. Some of the 90s kids around me were given tens of thousands of pocket money by their families. They were expected to buy a car or something, but they ended up speculating in cryptocurrencies. A year ago, they were just out of school, full of energy, but now they sit there like a log. I often tell people not to buy cryptocurrencies and not to be a leek, but I can't stop them, they just jump in.

The cryptocurrency world is very deceptive. You can feel the turmoil and anxiety of the people in this circle.

This is also the reason why I really want to leave this circle.

I think the chaos needs an end.

I really admire those teams that focus on building technology and product platforms first and then raise funds.

I also know some blockchain entrepreneurs from BAT. They have one thing in common - they make products first, rather than raising funds first. You ask them when they will issue coins, and they say no. I’m not here to raise money. I’ll just do things well first.

I have been in the cryptocurrency circle for four months and have met many different kinds of people. Some young people have easily acquired a lot of money through ICO, but have not yet learned how to manage this wealth. They are prone to do whatever they want and will not settle down to do things.

They are too impetuous, too chaotic, and have no bottom line. These people will have no future.

Now, the self-media that writes about coins are almost closed down, those who do project ratings are traveling, and some bigwigs have gone abroad. I am afraid that the only ones who can bring hope to this industry are the elites of traditional industries who are slowly entering the market.

People in the cryptocurrency world are waiting for a bull market. I think there will be a bull market only when blockchain technology is truly implemented, but most people today won’t live to see that day.