Kyle Hill is the latest in our series on what people in crypto actually do all day.
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Welcome to Crypto Diaries, a new series on BuzzFeed News that helps us understand what the future of Web3 might look like — by showing what the heck people who are already living there do all day.
We’ve asked crypto evangelists, NFT collectors, metaverse mavens, and decentralized diehards to keep a diary of everything they’re doing in Web3 for a few days. From trades to Discord servers to the latest degen craze, our crypto enthusiasts will explain every move they’re making to illuminate a space that can be baffling to outsiders. Want to write your own Crypto Diary? Email us at cryptodiaries@buzzfeed.com.
Name: Kyle Hill
Age: mid-30s
Location: LA
Industry: tech
Number of NFTs: 50
First bought cryptocurrency: bitcoin in March 2014
Number of Discord servers: 20
First NFT project: NBA Top Shot
Proportion of total assets in crypto and NFTs: 15%
Position: Web3 founder (former president, head of digital assets, Troika IO)
6 a.m. — I wake up and kiss my wife good morning before checking the price of bitcoin. I take my German shepherd on a walk as I scroll through Twitter and Google News. “SEC Slaps Former Coinbase Manager With Insider Trading Charges — Identifies 9 Crypto Tokens as Securities” is the headline that catches my eye. Markets are down 0.25% after a wild 12% pump on Monday.
7 a.m. — I return home and deliver an unsolicited crypto market update to my wife as she makes us omelet sandwiches, then I scroll through my email and check my Crypto Influencers feed on Twitter. I open a newsletter from BlockBar, which is dropping an asset-backed NFT with Patrón for 4.87 ETH.
8 a.m. — I intend to work out, meditate, and write in my journal (like my wife), but I just sit on the balcony for 30 minutes reading articles on Bitcoin Magazine, Cointelegraph, CryptoSlate, CoinDesk, and Bitcoin.com. I feed the dog, and my assistant helps me plan my day.
9 a.m. — Lots of Zooms. I have a call with a director at Coin Cloud. We talk about bitcoin ATM growth and expansion in South America. Then a catch-up call with an agent at a professional sports team. The NFT market is saturated, and the sense of urgency has died down considerably since November.
4 p.m. — Accounting nonsense. Introducing lawyers and accountants to crypto is expensive for startups and individuals. New token models test boundaries every year.
6 a.m. — Crypto Twitter is mocking a New York Times article by Paul Krugman, “I Was Wrong About Inflation.” I smile reading the comments, “We increased the money supply from $4 trillion to $20 trillion and now we’re surprised by inflation?”
8 a.m. — Another call with Plug In South LA, a network of 400 Black and Latinx founders and investors in Los Angeles. Through the program, I was introduced to the Traveling Diary, a startup founded in 2020 after the CEO identified a desire to connect with other women in a way that felt human. We discussed ways she could leverage NFTs for event fundraising.
11 a.m. — I like to hit up my barber before the Friday rush. I feel bad because I know he bought a bag of altcoins (crypto other than bitcoin) on Crypto.com last year out of FOMO and he’s probably down. I call a friend at Balcony DAO on the way to my appointment to learn what’s new in the real estate NFT world. Balcony is building a $13 million real estate NFT project that will allow investors to purchase fractional ownership of a piece of real estate.
12 p.m. — I take a 30-minute call on Intro, a mobile app that gives entrepreneurs access to in-demand experts through personalized one-on-one video calls. I donate 100% of the proceeds to a charity, the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The client is working on a project where he is “issuing security tokens to the African diaspora” and wants to learn more about the regulatory implications.
1 p.m. — I enter a Twitter space, “The Great Bitcoin Debate,” with some notable crypto influencers like Tone Vays, Muneeb Ali, Mario Nawfal, and David Gokhshtein. They square off against controversial HEX founder and internet troll, Richard Heart, who enjoys flaunting his wealth with diamonds, cars, watches, and his magical ability to foresee bitcoin prices.
4 p.m. — A friend from work sends me a tweet that Dan Held, head of growth marketing at Kraken, has stepped down from his position to join Trust Machines, which just raised $150 million. Held helped grow Kraken into a top US exchange, and now he will work on decentralized finance (DeFi) within the Stacks ecosystem; a major win for Stacks and Bitcoin.
7 p.m. — Soccer night. I drive to the field in Santa Monica. I snap a picture with my Stacks water bottle and tag @nftsonbitcoin on IG. I post two quick memes to my story — the first one comparing fiat currency to bitcoin and the second one quoting Andrew Carnegie, “Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate.”
7 a.m. — I wake up, walk the dog, and start reading The Wolf Den #547, a daily newsletter by Scott Melker, aka the Wolf of All Streets. “When all else fails, buy Bitcoin,” he starts, then continues with a humble critique of the world’s No. 1 cryptocurrency.
8 a.m. — I eat waffles, sausages, and OJ for breakfast, still reading Melker’s newsletter. Ethereum’s upcoming “Merge” to Ethereum 2.0 will supposedly allow the network to process 100K transactions per second and reduce its total energy consumption by 99.95%. The Ethereum Foundation suggests Sept. 19 as the provisional launch date for the Merge. Exciting times for ETH.
10 a.m. — A friend working on a DeFi business texts me that Citibank shut down all his accounts, including personal checking, savings, and credit cards. “I must be blacklisted,” he said. “I have no idea what I did.” This is common practice for banks targeting crypto firms, unfortunately.
11 a.m. — I manually buy small amounts of bitcoin, ethereum, and stacks as part of my dollar-cost average strategy using Okcoin. I send my new coins to a secure Ledger wallet in cold storage. I can hear the pundits in my head, “Not your keys, not your coins.”
12 p.m. — I spend my afternoon building wireframes for a new marketplace app I’m building for a client. I send a few Slack messages to my developers in Argentina. One of the most exciting parts of Web3 is meeting people from all around the world who share the same mission of building open, free worlds.
7 p.m. — I go out to dinner with my wife. She says I’m not allowed to talk about bits, coins, blocks, hashes, arrows, or crypto for the entire dinner…to which I comply. ●
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Katie Notopoulos is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York. Contact this reporter at katie@buzzfeed.com.
Contact Katie Notopoulos at katie@buzzfeed.com.
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