Alexis Ohanian is very optimistic about cryptocurrency. He even used the money from his early investment in Ether to start a venture capital firm that focuses on cryptocurrency.
Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of the social media website Reddit, reportedly purchased 50,000 Ether during its 2014 presale for approximately $15,000, or 30 cents per coin.
Ohanian left the social media giant in 2020. In a Feb. 21 article in Forbes, he said that his Armenian heritage made him interested in the idea of a decentralized store of value, which led him to bet early on Ethereum.
“Any group of people who have in their consciousness, or in their collective history, some idea of persecution, especially by a state, makes the idea of a store of value that is not controlled by any single state very attractive. And so, in some ways it was hardwired in me then, and made me in a way receptive to the idea of a decentralized currency.”
According to CoinMarketCap, at current pricing this investment is worth an astounding $82.5 million, reflecting a growth of 549,589%.
Ohanian said that when he heard about Ethereum in a meeting with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, he recognized the possibility for developers to build a variety of possibly unseizable assets on top of it, such as NFTs.
As a result, he made his initial investment in Ether, but stated in the interview, “in hindsight, I didn’t invest nearly as much as I should have.”
Ohanian created venture capital firm 776 in 2020 using funds from his early investments in Ether and Coinbase, which has invested in 29 crypto-related firms and raised $500 million to fund similar investments in February 2022.
In line with Ohanian’s belief that bear markets offer investors the chance to purchase assets at discounted prices, the firm has viewed the most recent market collapse as the ideal time to make long-term bets on the crypto industry.
The company presently manages more than $750 million in assets.
Ohanian added that although cryptocurrencies are incredibly unpredictable, “there are plenty of people who have that generational consciousness of seeing massive inflation,” which makes crypto’s volatility much easier for these people to deal with.
Content Source: cointelegraph.com