for real, i think the *concept* of cryptocurrency is here to stay... but probably my biggest issue rn is that it's impossible to distinguish the visionaries and informed zealots from the shyster shills who only care about pumping their own position. https://twitter.com/caseyjohnellis/status/1391319914112192512

in private equity financing (i.e. VC stuff) there's a bunch of rules that prevent entrepreneurs "accidentally creating a public offering" - and their intent is to minimize the risk of uninformed but bullish folks getting screwed

when we fundraised series seed and series a, i had friends and family wanting to dump money in once they'd heard we were raising via the grapevine.

2/n

the bulk of these folks weren't sophisticated investors, and *oh my look at that* they didn't satisfy the SEC criteria for the sophisticated investor (which, again, is intended to protect the eager and the deseperate)

these were friends who believed in me and what we were doing, and ultimately i said no to every single one of them...

4/n

why? it's NOT because i wanted to deny them the opp, but because literally none of them could articulate the risks in a way that made me feel like it was an informed decision (and not one driven by techie/market koolaid alone)

5/n

plot twist: having been back in oz for 12 months now I've bumped into a lot of these people, apologized (in hindsight, it would have been a good investment for them), then proceeded to explain why i have absolutely zero regrets and would do it over exactly the same way

6/n

why is that? many of the successful solution builders and entrepreneurs you'd probably know share a fairly similar ethical code (theory: that's a part of why they made to success), but for each of us there are 100 snakes who only care about puffing up the pyramid

7/n

(...ps if any of them want to chime in and violently disagree here, i honestly welcome it)