As bitcoin crashed 20 percent late last month, Jered Kenna — one of the first bitcoin millionaires — returned to Twitter after a three-year hiatus with a startling statement, saying that he “lost the love for the industry.”
In the early days, “all we talked about was things that actually had substance, and very few people were talking about making money,” Kenna said in a telephone interview last week from Texas, one of his home bases. “And now the only thing people focus on is making money.”
Kenna, 37, said he owns only half a bitcoin, valued at about US$4,000. He used to hold thousands, initially bought for cents on the dollar, and headed TradeHill Inc — the US’ first cryptocurrency exchange — handling one-quarter of all global bitcoin trades.
He got into the industry not to make money, though, but to change the world, Kenna said — and has became disillusioned in the past few years because instead of revolutionizing payments and challenging the banking system, crypto became all about speculation.
Hearing an advertisement on his car radio several years ago, encouraging people to mortgage their homes to buy bitcoin, took him aback. The initial coin offerings craze of 2017, in which start-ups raised billions by selling digital coins mostly to retail investors, and then often disappeared with the funds, or not deliver any real products, was another blow.
More recently, exchange-based coin offerings have taken center stage — many of them likely as bad, he said.
Many of his old crypto friends feel the same way, Kenna said, although few are getting out, as they are still practically minting money. Then there is also the prestige.
“I was in Miami last week and I went to a crypto event, and it was full of beautiful models looking for men,” he said.
“I was like: ‘This has changed,’” Kenna said, recalling gatherings full of tech geeks years ago.
He is not crypto’s only defector: Roger Ver, known as “Bitcoin Jesus” for proselyting about the digital coin, now speaks against it and had split off to create a rival token.
Many of the old-timers had “unrealistic expectations” about bitcoin and did not like it getting commercialized, said Nic Carter, cofounder of crypto tracker Coin Metrics.
“Lots of the early utopian builders naturally got disillusioned,” he said. “That’s to be expected.”
He called the departed, “so many lost souls.”
Kenna has gotten out partly involuntarily: He accidentally erased 800 bitcoins (valued at about US$6.5 million now) from his computer in 2010, and then lost millions of dollars’ worth to a hack in 2016.
He has since chosen to rebuild his life outside of the crypto world, creating what he said is the largest independent craft brewer in Colombia, and building out a coliving tech space in San Francisco — built from the ashes of his crypto wealth.
In 2016, right before he was hacked, Kenna sold half his crypto, and invested the money into a small brewery in Colombia, where he went thanks to a Colombian girlfriend who wanted to move home.
“We split up after a while, and I decided to stay and open the brewery,” he said.
20Mission Cerveza — which looks like your typical upscale pub, with lots of unfinished wood, a stage for a blues band and giant chandeliers — is also making tonic and ginger beer. The brewery’s Web site is in Spanish, except for its slogan: “Stay classy.” Kenna is raising money to expand the business and wants to start importing the beer to the US.
Back in 2012, he also bought a building in San Francisco for US$2 million using his crypto wealth and turned it into the 20Mission co-living space for techies and artists. There are 41 bedrooms and shared bathrooms and kitchen.
Kenna has been mostly out of crypto since 2016, when he said a hacker purchased a smartphone in his name. The hacker then changed his e-mail passwords, took over about 60 accounts and stole millions, he said.
Kenna was so stressed out, he said he had to go to a hospital and has been on blood-pressure medication since.
“The hack took my entire life,” Kenna said.
Just then, he was getting ready to relaunch a new crypto exchange, an effort that the hack derailed.
Started in 2011, TradeHill closed its doors in 2012, citing a need to get money-transmitter licenses and because of difficulty of finding a bank willing to work with it, among a host of reasons, he said.
In addition to his half a bitcoin, Kenna said he owns a few thousand XRPs and a stash of a lesser-known coin, which he invested in two years ago. He does not think crypto will disappear altogether.
“Let’s say it’s 90 percent speculation,” he said. “Well, casinos are 100 percent speculation and they are still around.”
It was late morning and steam was rising from water tanks atop the colorful, but opaque-windowed, “soapland” sex parlors in a historic Tokyo red-light district. Walking through the narrow streets, camera in hand, was Beniko — a former sex worker who is trying to capture the spirit of the area once known as Yoshiwara through photography. “People often talk about this neighborhood having a ‘bad history,’” said Beniko, who goes by her nickname. “But the truth is that through the years people have lived here, made a life here, sometimes struggled to survive. I want to share that reality.” In its mid-17th to
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km
NEXT GENERATION: The company also showcased automated machines, including a nursing robot called Nurabot, which is to enter service at a Taichung hospital this year Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) expects server revenue to exceed its iPhone revenue within two years, with the possibility of achieving this goal as early as this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said on Tuesday at Nvidia Corp’s annual technology conference in San Jose, California. AI would be the primary focus this year for the company, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), as rapidly advancing AI applications are driving up demand for AI servers, Liu said. The production and shipment of Nvidia’s GB200 chips and the anticipated launch of GB300 chips in the second half of the year would propel
RSS