Transcript
Speaker: you
Speaker: Welcome to a new episode of the InSilico Terminal podcast. And I'm going to try even even though you you just said to me like you're not known under that name, but I'm going to to try to pronounce your name properly now. as ah As a like just in the way that I assume it I would i have to look it up. My guest today is Benoit Duboison.
Speaker: Spot on. but on on fresh each yeah Also known as like, but what what what what is ah your your crypto name? Just Benny or? i bet i mean, people call me Benny, but my username is Benny the boss.
Speaker: I see. true true true, true, true. Okay. So my guest today is Benny the Boss, or also known as the the French name that I just pronounced almost correctly. And um yeah, this is your first interview talking about crypto. Many people have ah expressed excitement and also asked some questions about what they would like to talk about today. But first, before we get into anything else, I have to ask a very important question.
Speaker: Because this is my my my Extremely Serious podcast. We're going to start with... Fuck, Marikil. SBF, Ansem, and CZ.
Speaker: Fuck, that's Maru's question, right?
Speaker: It's not easy, I know, I know. I'll marry CZ for what he's done for the space and for Binance products in general. And also everything he's done privately as well.
Speaker: I think I'll probably kill SBF and fuck whoever's left, I guess. What the fuck? Just the record, this is Anson, just for for like the the camera and everyone. just yeah hope I don't hold him near to my heart either, but whatever.
Speaker: Okay, perfect. Now that we have that out of the way, um can you tell me a bit more about like yourself and what what you've done in in crypto for people that might not not know so far? Yeah, so I joined crypto...
Speaker: Really randomly ah in because i was actually looking at a way to play poker online.
Speaker: And um I was obviously way too young. And I couldn't have a credit card or couldn't have a bank account. And I had actually found a it was a site back then where you could only play with Bitcoin. That was called SWC, I think. And essentially, wanted to be able to play on there. And I found a P2P market in Switzerland. And I was like, hey, like I give you $100, you give me Bitcoin. And that's essentially how um I got into it. It was completely by proxy of like needing a way to put money on the site.
Speaker: And um didn't really pay much attention to that space for basically until 2016, 2017, when friends that I had in poker were like, I'm making more money ah buying and selling cryptocurrencies and playing poker. Like, should really look into this. And I was like, all right, that sounds kind of cool. And basically,
Speaker: did what a lot of people did and opened an exchange. Lost a bunch of money, then realized I'm going to do things a bit differently and sort of found things that made intuitive sense to me and decided to test things out. And basically, as things went on, I did that for 10 years after, almost. and the And yeah, got more sophisticated over time, but it started just like really simple stuff, like I think back in the days, there were like a lot more exchanges than people think, I think, nowadays, especially when they join now. um I remember was Poloniex that was really big at the time.
Speaker: There was Bitfinex that was also pretty big. There was... a was like hit Hit C or Hit BTC or something like this as well. And basically back then, I just started, basically the way that I started trading was um directionally, as i think everybody at the beginning realized that I wasn't working too well for me. And the instead i ended up looking, um I ended up realizing that BTC at some point was trading at different prices on different exchanges. And I was like,
Speaker: that doesn't really make sense to me. And I had looked into why and like some sites you just couldn't withdraw for like two t weeks. So like that explained a bit of it. um yeah Sort of understood like counterparty risk and things of that sort ah that way as well. But essentially it was just like finding different markets that were trading at different prices and just yeah, just doing very simple trust exchange arbitrage.
Speaker: And then in 2018, Late 2016, or yeah, ah I found out about Cryptopia, which was a now infamous exchange that got hacked and lost all our money. But for ah like a one year period, it was like Nirvana, right? It was like this exchange that was basically listing every single project that was coming out.
Speaker: And it was listing it, I remember, because it was listing it on BTC markets. So you were trading against BTC. But then they would do it for Ethereum, then they would do it for ah Doge, Litecoin, etc. And essentially you had like six different markets for the same of for the same projects and you could ARP things like on it just continuously on there. And it was like a great way to learn actually because spreads were really, really wide. So like it was quite difficult to do things properly. You had to actually learn how to
Speaker: get the market maker to push it in your direction. and it was an interesting time altogether because back then the there was just like so so many things happening at the same time. um And it was kind of like the first step was like, yeah, just playing around and just testing things that work, things that don't.
Speaker: I think we we kind of need to explain for people because ah most of the people don't really know that probably that back then there were no stable coins yet. So everything, was like normal that everything was like priced against Bitcoin or against like other altcoins. As far as I i but know, because I only joined in 2017. So it was kind of a bit later, but...
Speaker: i think I think in 2016, there was DAI, maybe late 2016. But like markets were not settled in in stablecoins yet. So you're forced to troll against BTC.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, it created a though ah lot of like really funky stuff. like For example, if if your market like your your project and it was worth one set,
Speaker: ah one Satoshi, they would just list it against Litecoin, for example, and then you would go down also to one 0.0.0. And then they would the same thing for Doge, and then you would go down to 0.0. It was just, yeah, it was great that's great. I have such fond memories of that time, really.
Speaker: So I mean, the the first trade of just like doing exchange arbitrage or whatever is kind of self explanatory, or it's kind of like what people have, what SPF has talked about a bunch back then, even though you want to kill him, but like, it's it's kind of known among people or whatever. But how how can you imagine this, ah like, spread trading with these, like, weird pairs and stuff like that back then?
Speaker: Maybe you could like give an example. So back then, um the ways that I did it primarily, especially at the very beginning, was I would use Poloniex and um let's use Cryptopia. So i was using Poloniex and Cryptopia. And essentially, you would have markets that would dip.
Speaker: Essentially, everything was very, very liquid. And when I mean very, very liquid, like you had some like shit coins that had like 5K plus minus 20%. It was just empty. Everything was empty. Unless you you actually had things that had some kind of hype.
Speaker: And also, back then, there were a lot of like people who were in crypto but didn't really understand how exchanges work, how clubs worked. And they would just market buy and market sell every time they were doing something. But a lot of the time, there was just like zero liquidity. So you had things that would go down to zero.
Speaker: because they would just empty the book. And like there was nobody else to pin this back off for for a certain amount of time. So um that's a bit extreme, but you get the point. There was lot of things like that that you could do. And I think ah what I ended up doing um for a while it was ah BTC markets were sort of competitive. You had a bunch of people doing it. I certainly wasn't the only one. But on the Litecoin markets, ah there was a lot less competition because there was a lot less volume.
Speaker: So I was basically, back then I had ah had two monitors that I was using for video games. And I would hook up my laptop and I would have like all the markets that I was interested in, which were like,
Speaker: the top 20, I think, that were um that were doing the most volume on a 24-hour basis. And I would open them up. And as soon as I saw something um basically move, I would jump in and and try to push it back in line.
Speaker: And it worked out all right, but it wasn't like the most profitable trade in the world. It really picked up when um I realized that information was sort of like Well, trying to explain it in a way that makes sense intuitively, but like I realized that if you had more information than your counterparty, you would probably win on in the long term. So what I ended up doing was trying to find a way to predict those very wide movements that would happen on illiquid markets. and
Speaker: i mean I'm a bit proud of that because I think i'm i'm I'm not saying I was the first one. I definitely wasn't. But I was definitely one of the first people that would use on-chain deposits ah for creating their strategies.
Speaker: Because back then, especially on Cryptopia, there were a ton of like random proof-of-work coins that nobody has ever heard of. And like the the wallets, like there was no Arkham. There was no... there was no all those sites. So we yeah yeah basically had to do it manually. like the The Exchange Explorers were dog shit. and like A lot of them didn't even work. like It was awful. um So I'd compiled like so many different sites that I was using. And basically, i had made like Telegram alerts. No, not Telegram alerts. I had made the alerts on a spreadsheet. And then he was like,
Speaker: I had like 20 different websites that were getting pulled. And then as soon as something would come in, I would jump on the market and wait to see if ah if movement was happening.
Speaker: And then after after a while, I i realized that um I could basically pre-move essentially by um adding liquidity at like certain depths. So if somebody was, for example, moving like 15K of some random proof of war coin, I would start adding liquidity at like 20% below ah current spread. And then i would go down all the way or almost to like negative 75% gradually.
Speaker: gradually And that ended up doing doing pretty well. And um i I did that basically for like a year, above a year, I think, where I was basically doing that ah quite consistently. I'm trying to think of like another trade that was that I used to do on Cryptopia. Oh, yeah. On Cryptopia, there was like... um A lot of listings, like I said at the beginning.
Speaker: um But one of the things ah that was really good was that on Bitcoin Talk back in these guys, fuck, I'm going to sound like such a non-kindist interview. um On Bitcoin Talk, there used to be um projects that would basically speak about what they were doing and all that sort of thing. And I realized that those projects would often say like, hey, guys, like we paid the Cryptopia bonding fee. um We're going to be listed on there in the near future or whatever.
Speaker: because you had to pay to to get listed on there. And they would post that much before there was any announcement on Cryptopia's side. And basically, as soon as like anything got listed on there, because projects had like zero interest, everything would go up like significantly and it would catch like a pretty strong bid. So I would just like front run everything. And for like a couple of months, that was very cool. That actually worked? That sounds so stupid.
Speaker: It is so stupid, but it was great. And then... Yeah, and then like the deposit wallets for like new coins on Cryptopia would never work. So like I would try to like move the wallets and like ah to to deposit, to sell them, and just just couldn't. do And then they would reply to you on customer support like a week and a half later and be like, oops, sorry, we fucked up.
Speaker: was like, yeah, great. is but um Yeah, it was just so poorly ran. Like, i'm yeah, no shit, it went down. But nothing was making sense. But it was just such a great opportunity because there was, like, so many things that you could do. At some point, like, Cryptopia themselves, they had, like, a ah window that you could press. And they would, like, show you the arbitrage possibilities from the other sites as well, which, like, today makes no sense. Nobody would do that. But back in the day, they would just be like, hey, like, you can buy our...
Speaker: fucking shitcoin 2.0 and then you can sell it on Binance. Binance didn't exist but you can sell it on whatever the case may be and make three dollars. and it was yeah It was fun just such fun time.
Speaker: I don't know how much you still follow a current crypto discourse but there have been a lot of talks that people back then traded against plumbers. yeah that it's like uh i'm kind of wondering like how how how like uh i don't know if you can speak on the size but like how capacity constraint where all of these thingies because as you say the liquidity was so low so like but what what kind of returns did you have with those strategies or could you even achieve yeah i think um
Speaker: so ah twenty So, I was 15. So 2016 was when I began. um i was doing, i think I had like, it took like 5k from my poker bankroll, which was like significant. It was like one quarter approximately.
Speaker: um And I think by the end of,
Speaker: 2017 when I pulled out most of my money. So over like a year and a half, I would say I turned the five k into I think close to like 95,000 Swiss francs, so CHF.
Speaker: and who I think also um back then, it was like you couldn't make that much on most trades because like there was essentially no liquidity. And even more so, like,
Speaker: you would get like screwed so often by trading on like weird exchanges or things like that where like you take significant losses very often.
Speaker: um But
Speaker: like there were
Speaker: I don't want to misquote anything, but i I think back then as well, like it was very difficult to actually find people that were willing to sling like a lot of money like we do today on like random shitcoins. It was much more of like people that bought it because they actually believed that something would happen out of it instead of like the gambling element. um So that changed quite drastically. so Most of the time it would be it would be very small trades. and couple like i I would pick up like seven, eight, up to like $50 per trade max mostly. um But yeah it would happen so often that like it would add up quite consistently. And back then I was a teenager, so I would go to school, come back at like 5 p.m. and then from 5 p.m. to like 3 a.m. every day I would just basically...
Speaker: Yeah, just trade and try to make as much money as I could. Because back then, that's when I had a growing interest in the opposing genders. So I thought having money and being able to go on dates and such was very important. So yeah.
Speaker: so I think this is actually very, very good to know, especially for people nowadays, when everyone just wants to like make one random trade and buy something and make millions out of that. And you were like grinding for for months and years with just like 40, more or less very very small sums, but they still like compound over time into like a significant sum. And it's like actually a way better to do stuff like this and just like hopelessly gamble your money and just never make anything out of it.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, again, like there are some guys that made one bet and are infinitely richer than I am. But um yeah like realistically, it's a lot more reproductible to do what I'm doing. Well, what I was doing yeah over over that. And I also think like... um It was a lot easier back then. Like the whole plumber thing, first of all, it's very funny that people are saying that because plumbers are like nowadays making like 200k in the US, which is like over earning, out earning 99% of people that are bullying them. But it's definitely that there is some truth ah to that in the sort of like
Speaker: basically a lot of people that were trading were price insensitive. um So they would just press a button, try to sell. If they lost 25% on execution, ah it didn't seem to bother them all that much.
Speaker: um But on the other side, like there was so much more risk than there is today. like One of the things that I like to say to the people that, to my friends and everything, they're like, wow, it was so much easier back then. like We couldn't even trust Tether.
Speaker: like I remember like genuinely not holding Tether because I was 100% sure it was going to go down. And it was going to bring the entire market down with it. So like there was so many points of potential points of failures that were like gigantic. I mean, Cryptopia, they took a bunch of my money when it went down. like um There was like continuous ways, essentially, that things things would you would essentially lose money even by doing everything right um because you just how the market was back at ah back then.
Speaker: yeah People are today really underestimate that. I mean, I didn't really participate that much during that time, but I still remember that when Tether was like quite sus and like everything kind of was even even like bit Bitcoin and then with like these hard fork wars and all of that stuff, like the trust that like things have nowadays is like really not comparable to what what kind of trust you had to like put your money somewhere like before, I mean, 2020 or whatever, like before DeFi and stuff existed. even then it's like different but like not nowadays you can like put your money into stables and it's probably like more or less insured by the government because they like hold so much debt and whatever and like every every exchange i mean exchanges can still go down like ftx and all of that but still it's like very different from being on these random websites and all of that stuff that you had back then
Speaker: Yeah, and and even then, like there was like we couldn't we didn't trust anything. like I can't speak for other people, but like I, myself, like didn't trust anything. I remember being like, most of this is probably all going to fail, ah except after the like late 2017 run where I was like, crypto is going to change the world. This is the greatest invention of human history. um Because I got caught in the high What made you think that?
Speaker: Price is going up a lot. Many first cases. Oh man, that was also such a great time. But um i got I got very lucky. I actually pulled out a bunch of my money um that I had made on Cryptopia in like November 2017, I think. Because I was actually like, OK, like now I have like, which for like a 17 year old is like a huge sum of ah of money, right? Like I almost 100K and I was like, I'm going to pull out at least ah like 50K for college because i was I was planning on going to and the US.
Speaker: So because of that, I was like, OK, I need to be safe a bit, like like that I don't have to get a loan and all that sort of thing. um And then I continued trading with the rest of the money I had.
Speaker: And I remember being like in like December, I was like, this was the greatest mistake of my life. Because like the du the money that I left in the account was up like something stupid. And then I lost it all anyways. so so um But yeah, that period was was really crazy.
Speaker: um Everybody, i don't know about everybody, but like the people I was talking to on Reddit and Bitcoin Talk and all that sort of things were like, Yeah, like crypto is just never going to go down anymore.
Speaker: Like it was like the first super cycle. thing It was like like like we have basically found like the fucking ah like the Internet before the Internet. Like this is the new Internet. We're going to revolutionize everything. And like it was yeah, it was a crazy time.
Speaker: I can relate. I was very psyopped as well because I joined in 2017, like later towards the year in September or something, I bought my first ah Bitcoin and ETH and XMR and shit like that. And then I was also just on Reddit. I was fully into the tech. Like I didn't even um consider that trading is like a thing or whatever. Like I kind of believed in getting rich from everything just because it would go up. And it's like what you said, like the new internet, like it's the next big thing. It's going to change the world. And um I have some of this and...
Speaker: Because like yeah then as far as I know, it was the first time that like the general public was really talking about it. Like I had people in IRL that were like... I had people in IRL that was like... I was trying to tell them about Bitcoin and stuff early on. Nobody gave a shit. And then all of a sudden, there were like a bunch of people in IRL that were like, dude, like, tell me about this Bitcoin thing. I remember doing swaps for cash with like so many of my friends.
Speaker: I wonder where those Bitcoins went, but yeah.
Speaker: It was definitely an interesting time and definitely many, many top signs. But I want to talk a bit more about your general like approach to the market because i you mentioned that's also something that you want to talk about because you you are, like you said, you quite soon dropped the directional approach that many people like get get stuck with or lose all their money or like some few people i get really good at it and make it. But you approach the market from a bit more of a quantitative perspective while not really having ah any sort of background in in that area. So how yeah you can you tell us a bit more about like your your approach and how you see the markets ah in that way while being self-taught essentially? Yeah. so
Speaker: I think the major edges that I've had were essentially because I'm very introspective and honest about my abilities. I think i'm I have a ginormous ego, but I can tell when I'm being beat and when ah I don't have an edge.
Speaker: ah So I don't try to compete endlessly ah or or think that I'm getting negative variance or whatever. And ah I just drop things that are losing very quickly.
Speaker: um And then on the other side, I think that um i think i'm i I'm willing to be a lot more creative than a lot of people, especially um that are interested in like quantitative approaches and and things of that sort. think I've um had a lot of trades that were like,
Speaker: very ah very much out there um that people probably wouldn't have bothered with and and things of that sort. So my interest was very much so into like understanding how specific things worked and and basically finding an edge into what people weren't looking into. So a lot of a lot of it, especially at the beginning,
Speaker: um like ever since 2018 or so, was like accumulating a lot of data um that people sort of weren't looking into. So like I was im one of the few few people ever that have read like almost all the white papers, um that have like really everything that had perpetuals on on BitMEX. I knew pretty much everything by heart.
Speaker: um and i had gigantic Excel sheets with like in 2021 with every listing on Binance, on Bybit, on OKEx, on FTX, where I knew because like narratives became like a big thing around that period. like Things would group together and rally. um So I would basically make subgroups of coins that I thought would be like in a basket together. and um sort of that's the way that I started sort of acquiring all that data. and then
Speaker: From that, um I was able to found a like basically find things before a lot of other people. um I still think that there some things that are um not really that people don't really pay enough attention to.
Speaker: So like for example, one of the things that I think has been like really, really big for like forever. was like um all the DAOs that are making ah sort of voting for especially token buybacks, but for a bunch of other things. ah I haven't like actually traded ah for a while now, but like I would expect a lot of, especially like for smaller projects, for that to not be fully priced in, to be honest.
Speaker: um Because it it was it was really like a sensational trade for for like years. I remember I posted a thread about it once, um about ah the PyBid token.
Speaker: um Basically, like in it was late December, the block basically wrote an article about the DAO voting for um buying back $100 million dollars worth of their token. And it was like in the middle of the bear market.
Speaker: um And like, obviously, everybody is going to vote yes. They will want to fucking get out of there. get out of the their of their holding. So um I longed like a metric shitload.
Speaker: And it teleported like a week later. So like for an entire week, I was holding that position. wall Maybe I'm wrong. like I have no idea what I'm doing. and then um And then they officially announced that it had passed, obviously. And that's when ah it caught on.
Speaker: And I think there's a lot of things like that. um There is a lot of value, especially in crypto, to pay attention in spaces where other people aren't. I think like ah ah one of the really big ones um was also, for example, like exchange and mechanics. So, for example,
Speaker: um I'm trying to find like a good example. like ah liquidation like Liquidation engine or matching engines, um you could find a huge alpha in that. For example, like the one that I have on the top of my head was on BitMEX.
Speaker: there was um Well, it's kind of infamous now, but you'd get like you're or you wouldn't be able to put an order during high volatility events because um the the engine would get overloaded and they wouldn't be able to to pass your order through. Well, what I realized and a few other people realized was that reduce ah only orders ah would go through because they were being advantaged compared to yeah new positions.
Speaker: But what I did was like, OK, so I'm going to have ah two accounts. One account is going to be long 10 bitcoins and the other is going to be short 10 bitcoins. And then when one of those events happen, I just toss the one that I don't want and and keep the other. And that was also a pretty good trade.
Speaker: Like there's there's a lot of things ah that were interesting. On FTX, there was a... ah weird funding quirk. I don't remember exactly, if I'm honest, but there was, um you could min lot on perps, so like you you would put like the minimum order and you could push funding ah towards your site if you did it every X amount of time so that, I don't, I think I might not be exactly on point. I don't remember exactly, but there was definitely something with ah min orders. It was like, it was so obvious that you had like random perps that were like getting hit continuously.
Speaker: um But I never traded that personally. there There was, yeah, a bunch of things like that where um there's a lot of value in looking into things that other people sort of aren't simply because as well, like one of the most important things I think that I've found in my career was that I was ah capable of accepting that I wasn't going to compete with ah all my friends even or people that I looked up to now that I would pay attention to a lot
Speaker: least less competitive aspects of of those markets by trading on places where people didn't want to trade, by accepting risks that people didn't want to didn't want to accept, or like things that were really liquidity-constrained.
Speaker: um And essentially, just focus on that and doing volume over um trading multiple strategies at the same time, because like you couldn't put much money into into one of them. but um Yeah, essentially, looking back, I think that's one of the key like success points that I've had was was because of that, because I was um honest with my abilities as well and and figured that it was easier to steal ah ah lollipop from a from a kid than it was to steal it from Mike Tyson. So I i picked the the former. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, actually. That's a very, very good way to look at the markets. Can you maybe share some more of your... We've already gone through like the early Cryptopia era and all of that stuff. Can you share some more of your your best trades that you've made? Because ah people also wish for like what you did during the FTX era before that collapsed.
Speaker: Anything noteworthy from that time? FTX was, a well, I will say it. I think everybody back then would say it as well. Like it was by far the best exchange ah experience that we've ever had in crypto. I think it's fair it to say.
Speaker: Like you could really tell that it was built by traders for traders as their motto said, um because a lot of things just, you could clearly see that Alameda was like, oh yeah, let's just make a buck quickly and we'll we'll do that. I think like the perfect example I have was like, They were big in the Solana community. They were like, basically, they were behind most of most of the ecosystem back then. And there was this token, I think it was like Radium.
Speaker: And um you could stake it for, I believe it was like 45% APY.
Speaker: which I think is pretty good. um But you could also, so they also listed a perp on FTX. um Basically, like the day that it listed spots, it also listed perps. So what you could do was like, okay, well, I'm gonna stick the spot get 45%, and then you could short it to hedge your inventory. But because you knew that essentially everyone was doing that, ah funding was getting all over the place. And then Alameda would basically execute everybody that was doing that trade. yeah So you could basically play like Wipso, and you just did that continuously, just flip-flopping your position around. um
Speaker: And that was that was really fun. I think like there was a lot of things on FTX. ah like that, I think they they employed a lot of things that, like, first of all, it was the exchange where like people who did HFT or mid-frequency stuff um realized that they were making a lot more money trading on FTX rather than trading anywhere else, ah most likely because of Alameda, which is why a lot of people cuts Well, really hurt when FTX went down, myself included, because everybody wanted to trade there because you would make more money. But um one aspect that I remember as well was FTX had those um bull bear tokens. um
Speaker: Binance listed them later as well, um which essentially it was like 3x levered spot tokens. yeah um And they would rebalance ah on a daily basis.
Speaker: Now, for reasons I cannot explain, thought-wise to rebalance it at midnight UTC. think it was midnight UTC. Every day, with like not the greatest execution the world has ever seen. ah So you could basically like look what happened during the day, um and basically pick the site that would get hit.
Speaker: and um and make money that way. I remember that trade the that trade was on for for quite a while. But like especially when during the bull market, like the funding opportunities on FTX were pretty pretty massive.
Speaker: They were like, ah yeah, you could basically um make like You could have probably made like 400% that year with like significant size. The futures contracts traded like like massive, ah yeah massive, massive premiums. Like it was it was wild time. But for people who wanted to do like delta neutral stuff um or risk premium harvesting and all those sort of things, like it was really, really nice. um I really enjoyed trading on there. I think there was like,
Speaker: Oh, remember one trader that was that was cool as well. They had listed um like inverse...
Speaker: Oh, what was it? They had listed, I think, like... um
Speaker: Oh, no, that wasn't FTX. Never mind, never mind. I'm going all over the place. um But FTX had a whole bunch of leg tools that um was really interesting for for people who wanted to take advantage of it. I remember one trade where I got really hurt, and a lot of my friends got really hurt, was when I think it was called Celsius, when it went down.
Speaker: um they had a perp that was still traded on FTX and funding was like crazy. So we basically were like, okay, like we'll push it back into place. And at some point, I think we were like,
Speaker: probably like 70% of the OI, maybe more. wow. And I believe Alameda or somebody else realized that and took the biggest loss of my life that day. So that was ah that was interesting. But the Luna event also happened on when FTX was on. That was the closest day of my life.
Speaker: That was, that was, I think to this day, it's still the craziest couple of days of of my life for sure. i I went. but what what What happened there? How did that go for you? i did almost 72 hours, no sleep.
Speaker: It was crazy. I was very sober. Did you like ah did you like realize before that this would happen? Like, were one of those? Yeah, I think Luna Ponzi truthers.
Speaker: A lot of people knew that like it wasn't sustainable. And um I mean, like it it everybody was I mean, at least in certain circles, everybody was talking about it. It was more so like a of when when it would happen rather than than if.
Speaker: um Thankfully, Jane Street did it. So um I remember that day because it was ah really weird. Like I wasn't going to go on Twitter and gloat when like half of like crypto Twitter were down. And I was like, I just had the most profitable day. yes That's the best part, actually. yeah But um yeah, like you it it was it was crazy. Basically, we just look at UST, look at Luna and just like just keep shorting, closing the short, opening another, closing the short, opening another. um And yeah, I mean, it was it was really weird because then like the entire market sort of ah started panicking a little bit for a few hours and then reversed very quickly. And like there was so much going on and like
Speaker: the community was like so um like on tilt kind of thing where like everybody was mad. Everybody ah was talking about it. Like people were revenge trading the shit out of it. And then like it would blow up. And then it went like below zero. ah And then it went below zero, zero. And then you you had like those massive spikes randomly that would like liquidate everyone. It was like, it was a crazy, crazy time. And that day,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I remember there were so many people who got hurt really, really, really bad. And make it I remember it being tough for me because like I was like, man, like I know these are PVP markets and whatever the case and and all that stuff. But like this is my job. So like yeah it makes sense for me. But like when people would post like,
Speaker: Like my son just lost his college fund or whatever and things like that. It was like, oh man, this is dark. It was actually like, if you think about it, it was pretty bad, especially like for the Korean people and stuff. Like I think there were definitely like some life endings or whatever when that happened. Yeah, it was really tough.
Speaker: But it was a great day for me, so... Yeah. I mean, but the thing is, I mean, you're also kind of... It's stupid it if you're interested in that. I mean, it was nice while it was going up and stuff, but, like, especially when Dock 1 started, like, going so crazy on on Twitter all the time and making all of these bets. Like, even even if you, like, don't know anything about a product, like, if if a founder is doing that, it's kind of, like...
Speaker: I don't know if I want to have my my money in here but he did have some of the most amazing tweets of all time I think in the crypto community your size is not sizes I still quote that on a weekly basis it was very funny it was very entertaining it was very entertaining I didn't have any stake in it I didn't really trade it I didn't hold any of it but like it was it was very entertaining from the sidelines at least yeah and rest in peace to everyone that the that lost money and and more on that day It's actually really funny when we were talking about FTX um because it made me realize, since I've talked to a bunch of people on this podcast already that are also like more quant-minded, and every single one of them has been saying the same things. like Everyone loved FTX. It was really easy. like There were all these random trades where everyone was like, how how can like they just leave money on the ground like this or whatever? and like Back then, FTX was so huge. and like
Speaker: it It came as a surprise when it collapsed to almost everyone. But like yeah looking back, it's kind of like... but but like it came as such a surprise, but everyone was like making money randomly on there for no reason really. so it's kind of like, oh yeah, this is this is where everything went. Like Alameda wasn't actually like, they're they're not just sitting there with 15 screens in front of them on Adriel, tweaking around and counter trading everyone. they're They're also just very stupid and losing money. things a lot easier for traders. Like the way that collateral was ah being able to be used, like margin was really helpful for a trader. It's horrible if you're an exchange and you have to handle that risk. But for us, it was great. Like, yeah, it it was just really built for for traders. And it was like the by far the best place to trade. Even the UI was better than everything else. Like, yeah, I still miss the FTX UI, to be honest, because it was like that good.
Speaker: How like scalable were most of the the opportunities? We already talked about it before, like in the Cryptopia era. But I think like during FTX, things must have been like a lot more liquid than that. Yeah, it was very liquid. I mean, especially during like the the bull run, things were really liquid. You could get size into basically anything. um There's an infamous video from TraderSkew.
Speaker: um I have it on Twitter. Basically, The spoofing one. Yeah, he basically like takes like the most random perp on FTX that you've ever found and just like spoofs the shit out of it and gets like a six-figure entry. i Meanwhile, like the book was empty. Yeah, essentially, you you could get filled on on pretty much anything, um especially perps. I didn't trade spot that much on FTX, but the perps, yeah, you could. yeah Yeah, it was ah it was a fun time.
Speaker: Oh, something else that I forgot to to talk about was someone in the comments requested trade over. Oh, my God. I think that was like a more narrow market. um Yeah, that was you actually. Well, that's a good example of what I was saying before, it which is like pay attention to things like other people aren't paying attention to.
Speaker: um the The trade came to me really randomly. One day I was like, well, how can I find like the most price insensitive market participants?
Speaker: um And after thinking about it for a while, I was like, well, it's probably going to be like the threat actors in crypto, like hackers and um that' actually is why people who are most likely hi hackers and people selling drugs on the dark web and that sort of thing. Like, they don't give a shit how much they sell their Monero for, how much they buy it for. um So I looked into, initially, I looked into atomic swaps.
Speaker: um like ah things like ChangeNow, those exchanges were like you could basically swap, ah do swaps ah on any chain. um They're not exactly atomic swaps, but whatever the case, doesn't change anything. um But I realized that it was there was like not much to be done there.
Speaker: um So initially I started with P2P markets, um basically just um taking advantage of, you know, P2P sellers that basically wouldn't change their price as prices were moving. um That was like the first thing I've done. And it was a lot of like people were doing like cash by delivery back then.
Speaker: ah So like you would pay, you would pay it would go into escrow, and then they would literally send you cash ah by mail. um So that was ah that was a decent trade. But on Trade Ogre, yeah, basically, I found this exchange. um that was basically doing decent amounts of ah Monero ah volume.
Speaker: And it was like really crypto punk kind of thing where like people who were really into privacy tokens, like they listed every privacy token, was like proof of work tokens that nobody has ever heard of, were trading there. And it was run most likely by American and Canadian guys who were um very like pro privacy and things of that sort. There was no KYC. All you needed to do was like sign up with an email um and you'd get your account. And amazingly, they never they never took advantage of their users. um They acted from like 2016 to ah last year, basically. They ran the exchange.
Speaker: very honestly for people who could have just taken everything and fled and the Canadian ah government seized it. But essentially the trade um was fairly simple. So um back then I was ah i was working with a a fund that was giving me liquidity. And um I basically was like, I think there's really something there because like the spread was huge. I think on Monero, the spread was like on Monero Bitcoin and Monero USDT, the market, the spread was like 1.5% or something.
Speaker: um which was like huge. And at some point they were doing, they were averaging, I remember when we started like $1.8 million dollars a day in volume, um but much later, or much, not not later, like randomly when a big event would happen or things of that sort, um it would do like 25 million in volume because somebody was like off-roading a bunch of coins there. um So essentially it was like,
Speaker: basically market making where like the first ah ah bots we made was like super, super simple, like entry level stuff that were like, we would look at other markets that were listing Monero, copying liquidity, adding a spread to cover fees and basically make profit. And basically we would just, um We would just quote and and and make the spread a bit tighter and make as much money as possible that way.
Speaker: And um at the beginning, like it worked fine. um we we did it We did all right, I think. I don't remember exactly. Then I had health issues, so i I sort of stopped with that trade for a while. I stopped trading altogether for a couple months.
Speaker: And when I came back, um I looked into it again and I was like, okay, like, let's try to make this a bit more sophisticated. And what I ended up doing was like, I would again, look at like when large deposits would happen and I would basically quote wider and add more collateral um when needed.
Speaker: So, Essentially, like we at some point, I think I was like 65% to 70% of the volume on the Monero markets. And during really, really big like liquidity events where like I remember one time there was like some small hack and a guy transferred $25 million dollars in BTC.
Speaker: And the just like he would hit me, but like I didn't even have time to rebalance that like he would just push the market lower. um So it was like ah I missed out on lot of money that day. But um I was like scrambling to find funds like I was selling positions on every exchange that I had just so that I could add more collage.
Speaker: and um And we ended up doing like a bunch of volume through him. But it was like, usually we would call it at like, don't know, I think our spread was like 0.75 on most days.
Speaker: um And at that point, it was like 3.5%. three point five percent Because like there was like a couple automated market makers, but they had like five k and in an inventory. So it was nothing. So then I'd put like 100K for like 6% wide. And the guy just kept hitting, kept hitting, kept hitting. yeah And it was like it was fantastic. And then that trade,
Speaker: um lasted for a long time. I mean, I did that for like another year after almost, until the Canadians stole all my money and and went away with it. But um I think ah in general, there is a lot of interesting opportunities that can be found on exchanges ah that are aren't popular for the masses, but they are popular to a very specific subset of the community. ah Privacy is like a great one, always has been. P2P markets where it's just people who just want to trade against one another is also really great. um
Speaker: Those kind of markets, I think, have a lot of edge because it's very difficult to do it very well. um Like the API on, oh my god, the API on trade over was so bad. Like we could only pull, we we could only ah move our quotes like once a second.
Speaker: So like when you're trying to do market making, It's not ideal, let me tell you that. yeah So we had to do a bunch of things. But ah I mean, it it worked out great and and it was fun. But like again, nobody did it because it fucking sucked. And like inventory management was terrible. like yeah You had to trust this exchange that like nobody knew who it was to like hold a hundred k worth of of BTC on there and like trying to move it left and right and deposits taking way longer than they should withdrawals. Sorry. Like it yeah, it was a wild trade, but it was it was really fun.
Speaker: um There was also a bunch of other similar markets than Trade Ogre. They might still be available today. I think one was like KYC something, no KYC or KYC no or something like that that was doing pretty good volume as well.
Speaker: um But essentially, like the opportunity is great, but your counterparty risk is so massive that like no matter how profitable it is, you really can't scale it as large as you want. and And ah like it was profitable, but like it's not like it was doing $20 million dollars in volume a day, and I was catching 60% of that.
Speaker: ah Most days, we we i mean didn't make all that much money. um But you'd get hit in like the the really, really wild periods that that would happen and and that would basically make it profitable on the long run.
Speaker: And um when ah when the Canadians took a took that over, um I obviously, because of that happened, I had like a lot of collateral on the website.
Speaker: um And when I did the maths of like, am I losing now or am I winning on the strat? Like I was exactly like zero, zero, zero. I was negative 0.69% over the strategy for like a year and a half. Oh God.
Speaker: Hilarious. But yeah, I mean, know it was, it was, it was tough, but yeah, I learned a lot as well into like, uh, understanding more so about like how liquid liquidity works, like, um, a lot more,
Speaker: A lot of things that have helped me um on trading in general, I think that was a good time. that was a good sort of like learning curve to to to have.
Speaker: How did you deal with like the mental aspects over the years? With like ah having all of these risks or like putting so much effort into something and then you're sitting at fuck by counterparty risk or like being awake for 72 hours when Luna happens and stuff like that.
Speaker: Has it ever impacted you like in a negative way? oh eat Bro, of course. I've cried myself to sleep a bunch of times. um I think... I think I was lucky to have gone through some hardship with my health when I was very young.
Speaker: And that really helped put things in perspective. I think like when one leg you really deal with shit that like is not fun, and like the biggest problem you have in your life is that you lost money, in reality, you realize that it's like not that big of a deal. um And also, the fact that I was really young helped a lot because like my All of my friends were just in university. So even if I fucked up, lost everything, was like, well, I can still always go back to that and and be fine. So it didn't worry me too much, um which also led me to taking way too much risk at points. But um I think the the the mental aspects um
Speaker: I think, again, I was very honest with myself. ah As soon as I started showing signs of um like emotional, i like I couldn't handle my emotions well, I would just stop.
Speaker: um I think ah there were there were times where I probably should have stopped ah at least the amount of hours I was doing. Because I live in i live in Switzerland, but so I was working on US and Asia time zone because it was more profitable for crypto.
Speaker: um And I was doing that every day for like three years. But that means that you basically wake up at like 2 p.m. ah and in the winter, the sun goes down at like 5 p.m.
Speaker: So like I would see the sunlight like two hours a day at some sometimes. And it was just not like I was not seeing anybody because like I was working at home or I had rented an office, but I was still alone in the office. And like,
Speaker: Yeah, it was it was a bit tough. I was doing so many hours as well, like just being in front of the laptop. Like at some point I realized I was like, yeah, like I genuinely have to go touch some grass because like i haven't gone out in like three weeks and a half or something. And um I think like the emotional side of trading, hey ah big losses have never really like impacted me a lot.
Speaker: over like a long period, like on the day I would be furious and the next day I'll be back in the office and trying to grind it back. But like, I think realistically what was like the toughest is like when you have to trade to pay your bills.
Speaker: um Like when I had a big loss and like, i or something happened, like i I had a really big loss in 2023 on an OTC trade where the escrow left with the money. And at the same time, things happened in my personal life that I i had to um pay a bunch of money ah every month and like I had lost almost everything and having to trade through that and and and basically being like someone's I was like I was like picking like do I pay rent or do I um
Speaker: Do I pay my other bills and things like that? And knowing that like you don't have a salary and like you have to trade through it and make money without taking more risk than you usually would and things of that sort. That was really difficult. um I would really not wish that upon my worst enemy.
Speaker: um But again, I think it Yeah, it's helped in the long term because like trading ah when you're really that under pressure and knowing like that you can't really fuck up and that you still have to do the best you can um without just literally gambling um was good force for my like emotional side, I guess, like ah on the long term, even outside of trading, just like i using that to, yeah, to even grow as a person, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah. Is that like part of why you you left crypto or you're leaving crypto? Well, I mean, there was like a couple reasons. I mean, first of all, I was mentally exhausted, to be honest, ah ah when I decided to leave.
Speaker: um i had gone through that and then like I'd finally got to a point where financially i I was happy and I was like, I think I'm going to take a break. And then I took a little break, came back and was like,
Speaker: I don't know if this is really for me anymore. um There was like, had, to be honest, i had some ethical issues were where the space was going. um I thought that... Understandable.
Speaker: Yeah, but like genuinely, like ah it, what really hurts me is like, I don't mind if you scam me, like it's my job, you know, like I know better, like fine. But like when you scam like a fucking,
Speaker: 35 year old mom who just tries to get a better life and like does everything well, but like you just fuck her just to fuck her. Like I have, yeah, pretty big issues with that. And just in general, like back then, like meme coins were basically 99% of the flow. And if you didn't trade them, you couldn't make any money. And like I had big issues with that as well. And just didn't, yeah, I didn't recognize myself anymore in that sort of thing. And like I realized I could be doing ah other things that I was more interested in back then.
Speaker: um So I made the switch and I mean like a yeah you have to be, It's kind of sad that like opt opportunist has like a negative connotation to it because I think in life, if you if you are an opportunist and you take like whatever comes ah when it comes, you have much higher chances of being successful at whatever it is, not financially, but just whatever it is you want to do. um So yeah, I just tend to to move.
Speaker: I left mainly because I wasn't happy with how it was. Also, there was not much trading back then, so was a bit easier. um but so umm But yeah, so I just decided to do something else.
Speaker: But there's there's one aspect that's, like really tough, and, like, I still have the itch now. is like It's, like, the most beautiful game in the world. I genuinely believe, like, crypto is the most beautiful game ever created. because Like, you're trading shit that has literally no value, ah intrinsically, at least. so So it's just, like, pure, like,
Speaker: yeah like you're just trading against other others and basically battling it out with like the most complex game that there can really be and it's like emotions or psychology i guess rather than any any fundamental reason why anything yeah yeah it is exactly like just yeah so so that aspect was really interesting to me um I grew up in a family that was very competitive. they were um My father was a professional ah runner. My mom was a professional horseback rider. My ah uncle professional. They they were all professionals basically. And I was born with a genetic disorder that made it very difficult to compete in sports.
Speaker: um So I had a lot of struggles growing up, sort of like i was I'm a very competitive person, but I couldn't find something where I could be competitive on like a level playing field. um So when I found poker initially, um that opened like my mind to like, actually there is something I can compete in and do well and and and basically beat my counterparties. um And then when I found trading, it was like even better because like the game is so much bigger. There's so many more things that you could do. And and having that was like really, really important for me, even like just pure just quality of life type of way. um
Speaker: and um And yeah, so so I really gave like eight years of my life to to crypto and I i Looking back, I have almost no no regrets. ah I made a lot mistakes. I lost a lot of money. um But so be it. like ah I think that was the best way to learn. And like it really helps even for what I'm doing now or like other things like that where like um you might feel, especially if you're like going down and you lose a lot of money or whatever, that like you're wasting your life doing things and like or you should be doing other things or whatever. but
Speaker: At least when, as time goes on, at least for myself, like you realize that um it it it there is something to gain from like almost everything. So I have no regrets on on that in general.
Speaker: I definitely understand the the like ethical aspects that you mentioned. I feel like just in general, I mean, it's also partly because price is like down and whatever, but like if you if you've been in crypto for so long and believe strongly in the tech at some point, it's obviously quite disappointing where the space has gone. And then also just like,
Speaker: participant wise i'm I'm not the biggest fan of like all the meme coin people and like just Solana in general like every every person that uses that is kind of like I don't have nice things to say about I left crypto now so don't make me start talking shit about everyone because I will no I'm definitely on your side I get it I really do get it but Do you have, ah I think you you already like said a lot of useful things that people can learn a lot from, but if someone was still to like start out now or like be a bit more of a beginner right now that doesn't just want to like gamble on meme coins and like what wants to do something similar as you have done, what's some advice that you would give them to go down like a similar path?
Speaker: That's a good question. I mean,
Speaker: ah This is like, everybody says that, but I think it's specific, like, especially in crypto, it' it's so important. It's like open like a random perp that's not doing much volume and just like literally just open the chart, open the tape and just watch that for hours on days. Even if you're not pressing anything, doesn't matter. Just like just watch because like a lot of people say like, oh, like, ah I just know when the market goes up. I know when the market goes down, like i have good intuition or whatever. But in reality, it's just like you've just seen this same shit happening so many different times. And like you don't really realize exactly you can't exactly put words on it. But like youre you remember because you you you've just watched it happen so many times before. least that's the way I feel about it.
Speaker: So that would be like the number one thing. I think the the second thing you should do. um is try to look for things. um
Speaker: The edge for a lot of things that I was trading ah always came from paying attention to things as soon as they came out. um So, for example, I made quite a bit of money doing airdrop farming.
Speaker: And the way that I would find out like what I should farm and what I shouldn't was like I looked at every VC, basically who they gave backings to.
Speaker: And um I would find like protocols that seemed interesting or that raised a lot of money. And I would just use them very, very early on. So i acquired a lot more points than when crypto Twitter started speaking about it.
Speaker: And I did that across like a bunch of ah projects, like probably 20, 25. I lost decent amounts on things that basically never never developed into anything. um But the winners far outgrew the the losers. and then ah Then I got really hit one time because ah it was the first time I think that they were implementing anti-Sybil strategies.
Speaker: So I got cooked on that. yeah, that's one thing as well, especially when quantitatively as well. Like, if you pay attention to exchanges as soon as they come out, it's when they will have they'll make the most mistakes. It's when other people will make the most mistakes.
Speaker: It's when you'll be able to spot things that shouldn't be happening a lot of the time as well. um So I think that's that's really interesting. I think as well, like you shouldn't be um shouldn be scared of venturing out to trading on like really funky places.
Speaker: um I think like one of a good example is like trading CFDs. um It's a bit more common nowadays, but 2020 trading crypto and CFDs was like nobody was doing that basically. um
Speaker: There's like countless reasons why it could be interesting, like yeah the ways their LPs work and things that way. like There is um a bunch of things that can go wrong that you can basically play with.
Speaker: I'm specifically not giving away exactly what you should do because I want people to look into it. um But I think as well, like um
Speaker: trying to think what I can give away. Oh, well, the CFD, for example, like ah I had this trade with Worst Contrarian on Twitter, where um during the ETH merge, I basically knew from experience that like forks and merges and that sort of thing um would basically always, you'd always have one venue ah that would fuck up um because they would trading would halt or things like that, and they would create really big opportunities. So I remember I had literally 43 different ETH markets open on TradingView and I would just scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll to find something. And then I found like an Australian CFD broker that had like terrible reviews on Trustylist.
Speaker: And ah every 26 minutes, ah the price of ETH would bump up 2% for a few seconds then come back down. Why? Still to this day, I have no idea.
Speaker: Like their LPs probably use like weird, I still don't know. We we haven't never figured it out. But basically we were we realized that like, okay, well, we'll just open an account and we'll buy it and then we'll sell it and and short it on the downside as well. Reality was impossible to short, but we we would basically just like bet price would go up, sell, price would go long. wait 26 minutes, do that again. And we did that for like 18 hours, I think, until the until the the signal stopped.
Speaker: And i ah both VC and and I have a ah post on Twitter about it if you want to look into it. But um there it was, yeah, those sort of things happen a lot more than people seem to think.
Speaker: um Really, really weird, like funky stuff like that is almost always quite profitable to trade. I think there is, um A lot of other places that people wouldn't really think to look into is like fintech companies, for example.
Speaker: um A lot of them offer like I can speak about this when i spoke about publicly, like Wyze is like a bank online online, online bank for people and businesses. And they do this thing where like they offer you to like lock in FX rates for 72 hours.
Speaker: I think on major pairs now. Is this ah was Contrarian's pin post? I think it's about that. It might be. Yeah, it might be. Yeah. um And basically, yeah, you you could,
Speaker: the ways that we would do it is like on f FOMC or things like that. We would just um lock it in a bit before. And then like if if price diverged, we would would go through with it. Otherwise, we would discard it. and That was a good trade. And there's a bunch of things like that that like um you have great opportunities because you're willing to venture out and think about things that are really weird like that.
Speaker: um You could also make money on wise doing the same thing, but ah on weekends because Binance has forex pairs. Most people don't even know but that they do, but they do. um And like price would um move a whole bunch compared to interactive brokers um ah ah ah and after market close um markets or I don't really exactly know.
Speaker: You can tell I never traded Treadfight but so ah yeah, that was a good trade as well. I mean, there's like a bunch of things like that I think for people who really want to know, like to learn, it's like you have to spend a lot of time, you have to really care about every new thing that's coming out.
Speaker: um Especially because at the beginning when things are coming out, like all the big players are not paying attention um because you can't put any money in because for so many so many different reasons. So like it gives you an opportunity to take advantage of that and to um sort of be like the first brick layer um onto something that can become very significant potentially or whatever the case may be. But yeah, I really do think that this is something that's quite important.
Speaker: I think a lot of people, um especially like on the quantitative side, spend a little bit too much time worrying on like execution and latency and things like that when they should really be focusing on um finding new trades or other trades or things of that sort.
Speaker: um I think RJ, Robert James on on Twitter, um has this phrase that I really, really like. It's like, if you can't trade ah if you can't trade it manually, then you don't really have a trade. um like People are focusing on like pre like edges that make a lot of sense if like you trade trade or things like that. But like in crypto, there's like a lot better spots that you could be looking into.
Speaker: um So don't overly focus on that sort of thing, especially if you're a beginner. um Yeah, and I mean, just in general, be curious about stuff. Everything that has a lot of EV in crypto.
Speaker: I think this is all very good advice. I just have like one one last question or one last topic that I would like you to talk about. And because I found most of your posts, I think, at the beginning, at least when when I do have to admit, like, I don't read all of your like giga long posts, like all the way through. Yeah, that's true. appreciate your insights stuff. But I have written many about like, networking. And I think you have many very interesting approaches to that. And I was wondering if you could like, share some of your insights, findings or whatever advice to people on what to do there.
Speaker: Yeah, so first of all, in crypto, networking is stupidly easy. like You just have to provide value ah publicly, right? So share an ad, share whatever the case may be. like Even if you think that like the the returns or doing that is stupid because it will cause alpha decay or whatever the case may be, like ah it doesn't actually matter because that's the way that you actually um get spotted by like people who are in industry or um people who are bigger traders than yourself and and that sort of thing. um And then you can get into like private groups with these people where they speak about things a bit more openly, where they share a bit more things. um
Speaker: And that has a lot of value. like For example, um Well, that trade that I spoke about ah the ah on the CFD with Worst Contrarian is how I actually got close to him and got invited to his group and then met everyone else there. And I mean, they were like my closest friends in crypto.
Speaker: up until now. So um that had a lot of value for me, like basically being able to learn from people who have a lot more experience than myself. And that sort of thing, I think is really beneficial.
Speaker: But ah if we think about networking in general, I think people are not bold enough. um they're there People in general are like scared of being seen like Like, what the fuck is this retard doing now? like why is You know, like, they're they're like scared of being like ashamed in in and in a certain way. And I don't have that at all. It it can be a bit cringe to like reach out to like a random person, like ask for something or whatever, or like just try to establish a relationship or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, I was in so many like super cringe situations where like I would show up to a guy's office and again, but what the fuck are you doing here? And i was like, oh, well, ah I'm here to tell you about this. great And he was like, just shut the fuck up and leave. And I was like, oh, OK, you know, but like.
Speaker: I think in general, um I'm trying to think of like examples I can share. oh a good one, I think, is like finding talent ah in crypto ah is not that difficult. But finding really good talent that you can that you don't have to pay like ah outrageous prices um is a bit more difficult.
Speaker: um And I needed devs ah along my time to help me build certain stuff like ah ah termin trading terminals and things of that sort. um And the the way that I did it was I found um really good universities in third world countries.
Speaker: And I would email the computer science ah department and being like, hey, like, I'm um I had a company in Switzerland. So I was like, I'm a company in Switzerland. ah We basically are looking for devs, but we want to help ah emerging countries. and like Do you have some students that you can recommend and whatever? And it would always like be like, oh, yeah, like this is the best student in my class. like I've never seen anybody so taunted. and I was like, hey, like do you want to get a job? And they were like, yeah. And then I was like,
Speaker: and There was this girl, I think, no, I had a girl and a guy for many years. There was this guy from Iran, I think. And he was like so good. And um he I was paying him i was pay him good money, especially for there. like I was paying $15 an hour, I think. um And it it was like I remember him telling me that he had a student job, and he was paying him $0.75 an hour, I think, or something like that. Oh, wow. insane so like the guy was like pulling out ah yeah i mean uh but but uh that was a really good way to find like cheap talent that was uh genuinely uh very gifted um that's something i've done even for um other companies that i built later down the line um that was very useful but i think like pure networking if you want to get out there like lot of the time
Speaker: If you're young, it's a really big opportunity because people who have achieved the a lot of things ah most likely were um overachieving ever since they were young and um basically will see themselves in you if you really try and and and make the commitments and and that sort of thing.
Speaker: um And I also think that like you have to be you have to grab their attention in a way that like not everyone else is doing um so that they remember you essentially.
Speaker: and So a lot of things are like, I mean, I've done some like genuinely outrageous, stuff I've done illegal stuff to get people's attention. But like one of the great ways that you can do that is like figure out where their office is and then just like hold up a sign until somebody comes and get it. i did that for three hours one day in Switzerland in front of a of like a tower. I had a sign with the name of the the guy I wanted to talk to. And I'm like, hey, I'm here to meet. um I want to talk to you. And I put the sign next to me. I put a chair and I just sat and waited until somebody come and get me. And that worked. I mean, there and then I also failed like
Speaker: so many times as well, but like ah if you really want something enough, ah you will do whatever it takes, I think, personally. So really, don't be scared to look stupid.
Speaker: Don't be scared to be ashamed. Don't be scared to fail a lot. um And if you can do those three things, I think you have a high likelihood of achieving what it is you you set out to achieve.
Speaker: um In general, I mean, I think that like crypto looking back was like amazing and I had a greatest time and I regret nothing but like if you are
Speaker: intelligent enough that you're capable of um really doing well trading in crypto. um And the only thing that's motivating you is like making money.
Speaker: And you didn't start with, or like right now, you don't have like half a million dollars or more in your portfolio. um I think you can make ah a lot more money doing something else, um to be honest, which is probably not what you want to hear as a trading podcast. but ah You're not the first person that has said that many people actually recommend against trading. but the like I really think that like it's a it's a job that's I think there's like specific type of characters that would do really well and others that really wouldn't regardless of... The thing is that the people that would like still trade, they need to listen to this and then be like, no, fuck you, I'm going to do it anyway. It's yeah like it's a good if we get people and and they say like, hey, don't don't do this.
Speaker: That's true. And and also like... um I mean, it's like the worst fucking lifestyle you can imagine. Like being a a professional crypto trader trading your own money is fucking awful.
Speaker: Like you're on 24-7. I had alarms in the middle of the night for years. Like the quality of life is awful. So like you really must either love it or be very, very dedicated. But I would assume i would probably venture out to say that like You can be very, very dedicated when bear market happens and for like a year and a half, there's like zero volatility and nothing to trade. And it's really hard to be dedicated. Yeah. Don't really love what you're doing.
Speaker: Yeah, that's very true. I think like even even now, like as nothing is happening, like the volatility is like as bad as it has been in I don't know how long and it's summer as well. It's bear market. The vibes are bad. It's kind of like, I mean, i'm yeah i'm I'm still here. It's like job and whatever. I would still be here if I didn't have this job. But like it it does get a lot more tough when it's not that interesting or like there is really like you just sit here and nothing happens basically the whole day. Yeah.
Speaker: I genuinely think that like in summer, like from late June to mid-August, if you like literally just sign off and come back, like it might be plus EV on the long run, to be honest, just because of like being able to think about other things and things of that sort. of like I've never had one summer where like, well, DeFi summer, that's not true. But apart from DeFi summer, I do not remember a year being like,
Speaker: Oh my god, thank god I stayed inside all day long. mean, DeFi Summer was also COVID. So it's like a little bit different than than yeah everything else. that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot about that. Damn, yeah, yeah. Of course. That was ah that made, yeah.
Speaker: I'm also very happy with that COVID happened when it happened because it made it a lot easier for me to say, ah I'm not going to college. i'm i go a trade there I'm going to trade full time. So yeah, I mean, I think people also, if you allow me to speak about this for just a minute or two, it's like,
Speaker: I think a lot of people who find success have issues with the fact that ah they have been lucky at some point along the line, mostly because they worked very hard to achieve whatever it is they achieved.
Speaker: um But one can be true ah regardless, right? Like you you can work very, very, very, very hard, but still be lucky at the right times. And I think that if you've found success trading and in crypto, um you have been lucky at one point or another. um because you can genuinely do everything right and and still end up losing um for factors that are far outside of your... um Yeah. so so So I think people um would gain a lot from being able to remain open-minded about that sort of thing. um and And in general as well, like,
Speaker: There's always like two ways that you can see things, right? Like the famous, like, is the glass full or is the glass empty? um I think genuinely being somebody that sees the glass full is ah is like plus EV in the long term because yeah um You will accept more opportunities that come into your life. You will and take risks ah when others aren't willing and and things of that sort, which are, I mean, almost always like a big positive.
Speaker: um I would like to say that like I've at some points in my life taken as much risk as I possibly could. um because I genuinely thought that it was plus TV for somebody my age to to do that. And it didn't play out most of the time, actually. um But i have no regret because at the end of the day, like and knew what the risks were. um I lost, I lost, but um it taught me a lot like in general and made me more resilient and and really pushed me into um having to grind to make it back. I think like a lot of people really don't
Speaker: realize how for a lot of us that like blew up once or lost for whatever reason um and they had to like really really grind to make it back like how beneficial that period is from like when you the day you get fucked to the day you come back like that period is like probably the most interesting, like cognitively speaking, at least where like you're, you're really focused and like you're doing like 50 different things at the same time, trying and find like, what is the best thing to do like right now? And yeah, I mean, it it was,
Speaker: It was really a important, I think, for my development. And it's what led me to switch from discretionary fully discretionary to hybrid. It's what pushed me to do a lot of like things differently because I realized that like I wasn't taking advantage of the tools I had at my disposal as much as I could or things like that. And um in general, I think there's a lot of value lot of value in that.
Speaker: Yeah, I think we've covered a lot of topics today. This has been incredibly interesting. um Is there anything else that you would like to share at the end? I think you just already said lot. I mean, I think we went over over most of it, but um yeah I would like to say that ah I really loved crypto. I really love the industry and I really hope that it succeeds in the long term.
Speaker: um I think that ah if anybody wants to pick up trading today, um they have amazing sources that we didn't back then.
Speaker: um There is really a lot of content, like really great content that you can that you can find about a variety of things. um But I would Encourage everybody that has been listening to this up until now to really not be scared of being very creative and and doing things or or looking into things that don't make intuitive sense.
Speaker: ah And basically spend a lot more time researching than they do trading. I think that's the biggest mistake that most ah most people make, especially beginners. um But yeah, I mean, I wish everybody a great time. I thank everyone for having made this community and all the friends that I made along the way. And the yeah, I mean, thank you. Thank you so much for for having me, man.
Speaker: Great. Great words to end it on. Thank you very much for for coming on, blessing us with your crypto podcast here. And I hope everyone enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Pleasure.
