Over 4,400 people responded to a poll created by Nathaniel Whittemore on Twitter last week, explaining what they did before becoming involved in cryptocurrency.
A guy who designed helicopter manufacturing processes. A plumber. A prison inmate. A nutritionist.
Someone described a group of surgeons who brought a fund to life; someone else pointed out that the industry was flush with professional poker players. There was a yacht captain, a racehorse trainer, a student hustler, a taxidermist, someone who ran refugee centers in Greece.
Many of these people dropped everything to immerse themselves in a field about which they knew almost nothing. But they somehow recognized its potential, and set about educating themselves.
When I discovered crypto, my reaction was to share it. If Bitcoin was a great opening track, then blockchain was the mix tape I wanted to put together for the rest of the world.
I co-founded Crypto Briefing within a month, and spent the next two years building and editing a publication with a mission to advocate for financial inclusion, data sovereignty, and personal empowerment.
And I did this from a farm in Missouri, not from an office on Wall Street or a skyscraper with a Bay view.
Which is at the heart of my point: this industry is for anyone, and for everyone. No matter where you are, what you do, and what your level of knowledge may be — there’s a place for you here.
And here at Cointelegraph, I hope to bring that message to millions more people.
About Cointelegraph Magazine
Cointelegraph Magazine is an (almost) new publication that goes beyond the daily news and delves much more deeply into the stories, trends, and personalities that inspire cryptocurrency and blockchain conversations around the world.
People make the products that shape our lives. Mark Zuckerberg may be a hero or a villain, and he may be both — which is why we seek to understand Zuck when we try to decipher what Facebook brings to (or takes from) our lives.
Cointelegraph Magazine will be people-centric, delving into *why* the true believers of blockchain feel they can change the world (and why they think it needs to be changed). And equally importantly, it will illustrate how the implementation of this technology is affecting the lives of countless people — today, right now, not at some distant point in the future.
It will add context and history to topics that seem arcane: for instance, making the key concepts behind decentralized finance (DeFi) accessible and comprehensible to many more people.
It will also employ Cointelegraph’s considerable design and development talent pool to create more immersive experiences for the reader, when a data visualization may be worth a thousand words.
We intend to create a publication that explores this industry through long-form features, thoughtful analysis, and a little humor and satire. A magazine with a more leisurely approach to this rapid-fire business, combining a rewarding read with an opportunity to learn much more about cryptocurrency — and the various ways blockchain technology is contributing to the world.
I hope you enjoy it, at magazine.cointelegraph.com
P.S. Journalists — my inbox is open. jon@cointelegraph.com / DM @JonRiceCrypto on Twitter.