Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire

by Dan Conway

  Even Gemini was wondering how the hell I got all of this money. I received this email from them out of the blue:

  Hello Daniel Conway,

  A review of your recent account activity showed high transfer values, including large ETH deposits. I see that you’ve indicated in your account profile that you are in Public Relations. Please provide the following information:

  1) Please provide a recent pay-stub, the name, and a link to your employer.

  2) What is your source of funds used to purchase cryptocurrency?

  3) What is your history in trading cryptocurrency?

  4) If you are an early investor in crypto currency then please provide documentation which supports your early investments.

  5) Please provide any additional information regarding the source of funds or any other examples you can provide to support your account activity.

  **_Please respond as soon as possible to avoid your account from becoming frozen_**

  Regards,

  Team Gemini

  Since there are few mandated regulations for crypto exchanges like there are for traditional banks, Gemini was using its own algorithms to detect weird activity. The questions cast a broad net and amounted to What’s your deal? I told them my history, showed proof, and was set free. In the back of my mind, I wondered if the email itself was a scam. That’s life in crypto—you never know if you are emailing with a Gemini service rep or a dog smoking a cigar, headed to Malta with your sweet ETH.

  Speaking of Malta, I talked to two slimy characters who run a tax haven in that country. I got their contact information from a friend after I complained about my 37 percent capital gains bill. He said that a partner in his firm avoided all sorts of taxes by offshoring his money. I am a community-focused liberal who believes everyone should pay their fair share, but I was willing to make an exception in this case. When I told the Malta guys I’d made my money from crypto, they took that as a soft yes that I’d go with their sketchy program, considering the obviously shady nature of my funds. They claimed their solution would save me millions in taxes. If the laws stayed the same. If I agreed to lock up my money until I was fifty-five. If I was still living. If these nuts hadn’t run away with my money by then. No, thanks.

  We stuck with the guy who brought us to the dance for our money management. Sean and the staff at Ensemble switched into a new gear. Their clientele was comprised of individuals with more than one million in liquid wealth. Most had much more than that. They were well prepared to educate us on the new normal and what we needed to be thinking about.

  I figured we’d want to fully fund our kids’ 529 college accounts and pump money into our IRAs. But that is actually what people do when they are trying to accumulate money. We now had a new priority: wealth maintenance and transference to the next generation. If we succeeded, our children would become the dreaded trust funders. An image flashed through my head. Jagged lines of cocaine on our dining room table. Jay crumpled under the table, blacked-out drunk. Annie posing nude by the pool as her latest boyfriend took pictures. Danny shooting his solid gold gun out back. Me prostrate like Joe Kennedy upstairs, in the final stages of ALS, a stream of dribble running down my chin. Eileen at Disneyland Paris with her new husband.

  At least none of them would end up as Dilbert. We were actually pretty confident they would be ok. They each have their own little achievement hang-ups and neuroses, which might drive them forward even if they have big bank accounts someday. Plus, Annie would never pose nude by the pool. We don’t have one.

  It is beyond dispute that we now have a lot of money. But the pull of getting more cash, becoming richer, can’t be underestimated. Even if ETH goes to zero, our dollar-delineated nest egg should be enough on its own for us to be set for life without having to work again. But if we had twenty million, we wouldn’t even have to do the math. There would be no question.

  I still want more money, because that primitive part of me still isn’t sure we’ll be ok, despite rational thinking. Plus, there is a certain sheen to twenty million dollars. It’s beyond wealthy. Even though it’s a merit badge neither Eileen nor I necessarily are striving for, it has a powerful, seductive attraction. Even a teetotaler will get hooked on heroin if you shoot him up every morning. So we need to hold on tight, because we are now traveling with the Ring, and it could quickly turn into our precious, ingratiating itself like a new dog or religion.

  We allowed ourselves one big indulgence, right off the bat.

  Eileen and I visited the Audi dealership to look at Q7s, the sport utility vehicle with a third row. Honestly, it was about time. My Volvo, which I had written a blog post about, three years prior, had only deteriorated since. It had broken knobs, no air conditioning, a backseat door that no longer opened, and a radiator that leaked and needed to be filled manually once a week. I felt like a working-class hero every time I topped it off.

  At first we considered getting another Honda or Toyota, but ultimately, Eileen wanted the Audi. I liked the idea of her joining the naughty bitches jamming around town in their yoga pants and fancy cars.

  The Audi salesman asked if we’d be leasing or financing the car, giving me the perfect opportunity to tell him we’d be paying in cash. Then, during small talk while we were filling out forms, he mentioned that he’d been breached in the recent Equifax hack. That allowed me to say, “Don’t worry, blockchain is going to solve all of that.”

  He looked up from his papers, grabbed his phone and said, “Well, I have my crypto right here.”

  That was a damn near perfect assist, a textbook bridge, allowing me to say, “That crypto is how we’re buying this car.”

  And then, to Eileen’s dismay, we talked crypto. He owned ETH, Litecoin and TRON. I knew that TRON was widely considered a scam. I told him he should look into it.

  He said, “Yeah, I just bought some because it was only a few cents.”

  He’s like a lot of noobs who flooded into crypto in 2017, people who don’t understand market cap in relation to the number of coins in circulation, and instead simply hope there is some chance a random coin can rise to twenty thousand dollars, “just like Bitcoin.”

  There didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to process what had happened to us.

  During these initial days, when I hadn’t yet told a lot of people about what had happened, I looked for opportunities to share my good news with strangers. The lady at Home Depot asked if I was off work. “No, I don’t work. I’m writing a book about my experiences in crypto.”

  The dentist apologized for starting our appointment a little late, allowing me to say, “No worries. I’m writing full-time these days, so I have a flexible schedule.” I was practically begging for a follow-up question. I wanted to tell humanity that I was loaded while pretending like I didn’t care.

  My friends had no inkling of how much money we’d made. They knew I was up a lot, but no one dreamed that I’d literally bet the house on crypto. If I had told them I’d made $200,000, that would’ve been a big deal. Sharing the good news has been difficult. In theory, the discreet and proper thing to do is keep quiet and not say much. But how am I supposed to answer when a good friend asks, “How are you doing?” or “What have you been up to?” or “Where are you working now?” I find it hard to tell only part of the story or be vague about what’s happened. Imagine discovering a family of big-foots dressed in tuxedos while camping, and when you are asked about the trip, only being able to say that you whittled a stick.

  My friends are equal parts happy for me and devastated. We’d always compare notes about work and our dream of getting out of the rat race. Everyone, including Eileen, thought my constant talk of finding an escape was the rambling of a loveable loser, an aspect of my awkward charm. Perhaps on my deathbed, I’d make a crack about finally finding a way to leave my job. Now that I’d actually escaped, I missed those discussions. I felt like a traitor. I’d obviously not trade what happened for anything, but at certain times, it was a little sad.


  I also thought about Maureen. She had always struggled with money, and I could have helped her if I’d had this money back then. But more importantly, she would have loved the ride. My mom, Kathleen, and Joey had all jumped on the ETH train and made a load of money. One night we all went out to dinner wearing matching Ethereum t-shirts. Getting rich with those you love was an insanely great and totally improbable family chapter. But Maureen was already gone.

  ***

  After buying the Audi, we had to drop some fabric off at Annie’s friend’s house in San Mateo. She knew Rebecca from sewing class. So we all piled in for a drive in the new car, which we’d literally just brought home. We told Annie not to say anything when she went in. Of course, it was the first thing she said. The whole family came outside. I’d parked one house down to ensure they couldn’t see the new car through the window. I didn’t want them to think we drove over to show it off. They said they liked it. Rebecca’s dad, Stan, told me I looked ten years younger. God, this was excruciating.

  It dawned on me that, up to this point, the people we were most comfortable with occupied the lower rungs of the upper middle-class lifestyle in our area. The Taylors, Fosters, and Sullivans were by and large like we used to be: just barely financially stable. With our windfall, we’d been transformed. On paper we were now more like the Pattners, Vices, and the Shiners—the upper crust of our area, with trust funds or big tech money and the cars to prove it. We used to be close to some of these people years earlier. But as they graduated to fancier bottles of wine, more expensive jeans, and vacations to all of the right places, we’d drifted away. To be honest, we resented them. We didn’t feel as comfortable in their company, and the fault was mostly ours.

  As I talked to Rebecca’s dad, I remembered how we compared notes over the years about the pressures of living in this area. I could feel the distance between us. I’d lost my bearings. I realized I was going to have to dance around my new reality. Even if he couldn’t care less—and he probably didn’t—I did. I couldn’t bear to talk about the decision we’d been weighing about whether we’d tour Eastern or Western Europe that summer. One of the bittersweet feelings about making a bunch of money is that you can’t bring your friends with you.

  ***

  I don’t pay attention to small expenses like I used to. Eileen had a handyman come over to do a few projects the other day. Normally, I’d give this guy a strong handshake to make sure he knew I was aware of what was happening. I might be too lazy to manage these projects and too feeble and stupid to do them myself, but I’d be there to monitor the estimate, you got that, Tex? Then I’d have a hissy fit when Eileen agreed to the work before asking how much it was going to cost. Now, I let it go.

  Doing something so right that it changes your life is exhilarating, but it is also uncomfortable. The other night, I was making dinner for me and the boys. I cracked an egg on toast, the first step in making a Popeye sandwich. Danny asked whether I’d ever considered using egg whites. In response, I laid out my nutritional philosophy. I noticed I was cogent and persuasive. I could have been a TV dad from the 1950s, perfectly rational and self-confident, with a rapt, respectful audience.

  Later that night, he said he wanted to sign up for Apple Pay. And there I was again. This time I sounded like I had a degree in economics with a minor in psychology. I explained how cryptocurrency will send Apple Pay to the trash heap where it belongs.

  It feels uncomfortable, like I’ve left home and am pretending to be someone else. Sometimes it’s too much, and I’m tempted to close the blinds, make a fried ham sandwich, and binge watch The Godfather trilogy.

  I see why lottery winners blow it all. They are drawn back to the familiar. And the suddenness of our windfall felt like winning the lottery.

  But the mania that led me to crypto was fueled by a big idea beyond riches. It was based on a belief that cryptocurrency based on decentralization was so disruptive that it could create a new free and open Internet, reshuffle the economy, and change the pecking order. In that light, decentralization is far more than a way to get rich—it is a vehicle to blow the whole thing up and let the outsiders like me succeed. The ones with the strange personalities, uneven skill sets, and unrecognized talents. The ones with sporadic confidence. The introverts. The ones who get passed over for promotion in centralized corporations where flaws and insecurities are identified and punished.

  That’s why I took the risk. Yes, it was about securing a future for my family, but like Walter White, this was about me. I wanted to win. I wanted to pass all of those corporate warriors who got promotions over me and also those people more emotionally healthy who seemed to be better at living a happy life. So I took the ultimate gutsy shortcut to the top, and now I can look down and see all of the corporate warriors, poseurs, and those just plain better than me, those smarter, better looking, better smelling, more grounded, more loving. They are climbing up. I’ll tell them, “Good to see you, boys. I took the back way.”

  ***

  Considering my newfound self-prominence, I was anxious to get to YouTube headquarters in San Bruno for an important meeting a few weeks after our cash-out in January 2018. I tried to rest my mind, watching the sights go by as I drove. I needed the meditation to pull myself away from the Reddits and a Twitter feed filled with cryptocurrency mania. I needed an escape from my own mind, which had become addicted to speculation, panic, and euphoria. I was trying to even out and re-engage with the world as a normal person. I was ascending back to real life, like a diver slowly rising from a treasure ship deep on the ocean floor.

  I constantly thought about what had happened, and I was getting sick of it. Eileen didn’t seem to have the same problem. She hadn’t been consumed with it like I had. It was easier for her to process and go about her business, albeit with more family trips, no money concerns, and the ability to write the novels she’d always dreamed of publishing. I feared that it had all happened too quickly for me, creating a permanent glitch in my brain. Like Holder from Game of Thrones, perhaps I’d only be able to say or think one thing for the rest of my days. In my case it would be, “ETH WENT TO THE MOON, ETH WENT TO THE MOON, ETH WENT TO THE MOON.”

  My meeting would be a good distraction. As I pulled into the parking lot, I identified the van parked in front of YouTube where my fat test would be administered. I’d been experimenting with a ketogenic diet, although I hadn’t been strict about it. If done right, this diet melts the fat away. I wanted to see how I was doing. After lying in my underwear for five minutes in the back of a covered flatbed, I sat down in a lawn chair and waited for the results. A muscular young guy approached with a clipboard and pulled up a lawn chair next to me. He showed me the results. He’d probably given this talk a thousand times. This was not uncommon, he said. It boiled down to, “Don’t panic, but your internal organs are encased in fat.”

  When my sidewalk consult was done, I stood up and concluded, “Fuck it.” Whatever I was doing wasn’t working, so I might as well regroup with a feast at the sushi restaurant in the strip mall next door. Once there, I ordered a large Coke, a jumbo bento box, and a separate order of spicy tuna rolls. Let me be perfectly clear: money was no object, nor were dietary restrictions.

  Three YouTube workers on their lunch break were sitting next to me, and I could hear their conversation. The outfit I had on was fancier than pajamas but more casual than shorts and a tank top. Considering the way I slurped my miso soup as if nobody was watching, I wasn’t likely a professional. They spoke freely.

  They were gossiping about work. One of them couldn’t stand a new co-worker who was above him in the pecking order.

  “You know me. I told him straight up. If you are going to work on the launch, you need to know what’s GOING ON WITH THE LAUNCH,” he said. “So he said he’s going to call a meeting and asked if I would join. Let me see—how about, NO!”

  The lady at the table was hedging her bets. She was friends with the complainer but also an apologist for the new guy. She ripped her wooden c
hopsticks apart and rubbed them together to scrape off any splinters. “He definitely has a ways to go,” she said. “At least he’s gotten better since last month. Did you know they put him in charge of the Vegas event?”

  The third guy, who was about to put a piece of sushi in his wide open mouth, pulled it back and looked at her. “Really? I thought Sue was doing that.”

  “No,” she explained. “It was given to the new guy, and no one knows why.”

  God, I was relieved to be away from this bullshit. I’d had a million conversations like this over the course of my twenty years in corporate America.

  The problem isn’t the people. The problem is the rules they are forced to play by. In a Forbes article, Vitalik said it best, as usual. “If crypto succeeds, it’s not because it empowers better people. It’s because it empowers better institutions.”

  While Ethereum has made me rich, will it ever provide a viable alternative to the despair that many of us feel in the modern workplace? Will it ever meaningfully disrupt the corporation, allowing people to avoid the organizational structures and corporate cultures that make many of us miserable?

  Will public blockchains run by cryptocurrency hand the Internet back to the people? Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google—plus scores of others who created what is called Web 2.0 continue to play loose with our data and have made the Internet one big gated community.

  The other day, I was talking to my friend Steve outside our kids’ third-grade classroom. We had been engaged in a month-long conversation about blockchain conducted in fifteen-minute snippets on the soccer sidelines, in line at the Harvest Festival, and at the dog park. He is a vice president at a prominent cloud-computing software company. He’d followed the mania about bitcoin and ETH, and he was interested but reserved judgement. As the bell rang and the air filled with the sounds of screaming children, he gave me the news.