“Many of my friends at the time thought I was crazy to invest in something that had no inherent value and would, for sure, be banned by the government”, says Marc De Mesel, cryptocurrency investor, who has recently invested 300 BTC and 10 Million NXT in the new startup, Cell 411. Cointelegraph spoke to Marc De Mesel to learn more about the deal and collect tips on how to make a successful investment in crypto as well as how to invest crypto in a startup.

Bitcoin has performed with varying degrees of success as an investment, multiplying its value over tenfold in late 2013, going down to 20% of that value in 2014, and slowly rising to double that value over the course of 2015. This has provided the opportunity for investors to make significant ROI over very short periods of time, while not being without risk. More recently, Ethereum experienced its own price and market cap spike, much to the benefit of early investors.

Marc De Mesel admits:

“Up until now I have never invested in a startup. I did invest in new cryptocurrencies, that I've come to realize, were very much startups too, like NXT and Clam, but this is my first real VC investment.”

Overcome your false beliefs about society and investing

On his own showing, Marc De Mesel used to be a very risk averse investor and preferred to invest in index funds and some gold. However, once he realized that real inflation was more around 6% per year than the government's published numbers of 2%, he had to admit that he didn’t make any real money. That was why he started to take more risks, first by investing in gold mining stocks and in 2012 also into Bitcoin.

Marc De Mesel on his first real success as an investor says:

“By only investing 10% of my portfolio into Bitcoin around $10 I was able to triple my capital in 1 year thanks to Bitcoin going up to $1000. I was, of course, very lucky with my timing, but I also had been working hard to overcome my own false beliefs about society and investing, that lead me to making the investment in Bitcoin in the first place. Many of my friends at the time thought I was crazy to invest in something that had no inherent value and would, for sure, be banned by the government”.

Your portfolio should consist mainly of crypto

The investor explains that crypto flows much better - you send it and the other has it immediately. In addition to this, it's also a psychological thing: Spending $200 000 dollars is much more difficult than spending 300 BTC and 10 Million NXT. However, De Mesel remarks that, “of course, that only counts if you are already into crypto and your portfolio consists mainly of crypto, as is the case with me”.

Marc De Mesel talks about his decision to invest crypto in a startup:

“At first we actually had a deal that I would invest $100 000, half in Bitcoin, half in USD. But then I proposed to pay the USD part in NXT, as I wanted to lighten up my NXT exposure a bit and also wanted to start using NXT. To my surprise, this was ok for Virgil. I was thrilled by this but when I did my calculation I ended up having to pay 6 million something NXT and 120 btc or so. I wanted to have round numbers that are impressive and was also interested to have a bigger stake in his company as I started believing more in him and the app during the negotiations. So I proposed 300 BTC and 10 Million NXT, he loved it, and we found a deal.”

Do a test transaction and check if the other party has secure wallets

It might be nerve-wracking to invest in crypto: a push of the button and it's gone. No way to get it back. For this reason, one should be very careful with the transactions.

Marc De Mesel shares his own experience:

“The biggest benefit to pay with crypto is that you are building a better world by using it. And that's a great feeling. But I'm very careful in my transactions. For such amounts I do a test transaction first, and in this case ask to send a transaction back. I also check whether the other party truly has secure wallets. Encrypted decently, whether it's offline or not, backed up up. It's some work, but you get better at it over time and the technology improves too. I'm not sure, but I think I can't get my money back if I send USD either. Once it's out and on his account, it's fingers crossed”.

Save your crypto

Marc De Mesel on why you should save crypto:

“Of course, it's volatile but this goes down over time. The more people use it, the higher the market cap and the less volatile it becomes. This is true for fiat as well. The difference is that fiat goes down over time pretty quick and so you feel motivated to spend it, whereas crypto goes up over time, so you want to save it more. That's why I also raised my investment as Virgil shared he wasn't interested to liquidate it all for USD upon receipt but instead was planning to sell only a small part per month to pay the bills. That means my investment is not melting away on a bank account to inflation but is used properly”.

The future of crypto investments

The investor is sure that cryptocurrency is the future, whether it’s in the realm of investment, or for paying for your morning coffee.

At the end of our interview Marc De Mesel concluded:

“It's great money because it's limited in supply, so preserves its value long term, and it's instant. You immediately receive it. It also has no counterparty risk. It's a wet dream come true.”