Meltem Demirors: 'If I Dress Like a Disco Ball, Let Me'

I archetypal met Meltem Demirors successful Singapore. This was successful 2018 – a beingness agone successful crypto years. This was earlier DeFi, earlier NFTs, and earlier adjacent Larry David, Tom Brady and Matt Damon began hawking crypto.

“I conscionable don’t springiness a f**k,” she told maine backmost then, explaining that successful immoderate fixed conversation, the champion happening we tin bash is “take the proverbial disguise off” and enactment similar our existent and authentic selves. I liked her close away. Smart, fearless, comic and adjacent delightfully profane – what’s not to love?

This nonfiction is portion of Road to Consensus, a bid highlighting speakers and the large ideas they volition sermon astatine Consensus 2022, CoinDesk's festival of the twelvemonth June 9-12 successful Austin, Texas. Learn more.

She besides happened to beryllium prescient. True, it’s astir a cliche for crypto OGs to accidental “I’ve seen carnivore markets before, and it’s ever the same,” but you get other recognition for calling the changeable early. In the outpouring of 2018, Demirors sensed that the crypto abstraction had gone done an “orgy of unfettered capitalism” and told maine that she was “excited astir a play of depressed prices wherever we tin absorption connected truly building.” She nailed it. This is precisely what happened.

In these past 4 years – 7 since she joined the space, helping to motorboat Digital Currency Group [parent institution of CoinDesk] – Demirors has been building, investing, inspiring and tirelessly memeing. What’s her relation successful the abstraction now, exactly? “That’s a truly bully question,” Demirors tells maine implicit Zoom from her location successful New Hampshire. Officially she’s the main strategy serviceman of CoinShares, an concern firm. Unofficially? “I deliberation my relation has ever been benignant of the same,” she said. “I similar connecting the dots. Whether that's connecting ideas, radical oregon superior together, that's what I similar to do.”

And successful our wide-ranging (and cheerfully profane) conversation, Demirors someway connects the dots betwixt investing frameworks, crypto twitter, however it’s “really hard to get punched successful the look each azygous day,” wherefore benignant tin beryllium empowering, the highest ROI enactment successful crypto, wherefore haters tin “go devour a d**k,” and wherefore she’s toying with the thought of starting her ain cult …with her arsenic the precocious priestess.

Interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

Meltem, it has been 4 years since! And the abstraction has changed truthful much. What has amazed you astir astir however it has evolved?

Meltem Demirors: Just the velocity astatine which the communicative astir Bitcoin and crypto shifted. It happened truthful abruptly and truthful rapidly and from truthful galore places that, historically, person been truthful anti-Bitcoin.

And the gait astatine which crypto has go a portion of the taste zeitgeist and fashionable lexicon. Seven years ago, erstwhile I started successful this industry, it was intolerable to find radical who knew what Bitcoin was. Now I can't spell anyplace without radical telling maine astir Bitcoin oregon NFTs oregon immoderate token they're into.

I’m imagining immoderate crypto bro mansplaining Bitcoin to you …

Oh, this happened! At a dinner, I sat adjacent to this younger person, and implicit 3 hours helium explained however Bitcoin works to me. I'm like, “Tell maine more. I'm fascinated. I've ne'er heard of Bitcoin. Tell maine everything.” It was fun.

You’re “very online,” and you’re besides a large representation thinker. How bash you operation your time to sphere your sanity and to not get swallowed up by Crypto Twitter? What are your productivity hacks?

I don't negociate it. It's conscionable chaotic, and I hap to run good successful chaotic environments. So that's good. A large happening that helps is I conscionable fto my curiosity benignant of usher maine to wherever I request to go.

Spending much clip successful New Hampshire has surely helped maine enactment focused, due to the fact that determination are nary distractions. It's conscionable maine successful the woods. My household is nearby, and I person immoderate friends nearby, but it’s precise overmuch going to furniture astatine 10:30 and waking up astatine 5:30. Finding abstraction and clip to deliberation has been truly important for me.

And I bash a batch of experimenting. Interacting with online communities, joining DAOs, and s**tposting connected the net is really truly informative and truly helpful, due to the fact that it exposes you to caller people, caller ideas. One of the things I learned aboriginal connected is: The highest ROI enactment successful crypto is putting your ideas and your thoughts retired into the beingness and seeing who and what comes backmost to you.

Interesting. Can you elaborate?

My champion relationships, my champion investments, my astir productive collaborations person travel from interacting with people, from bonding implicit shared appreciation of something. Whether that’s a sci-fi book, a meme oregon a thought astir the inflationary economics of DeFi tokens. And pursuing that further successful a smaller forum, and past that evolves, and past it's each of a sudden, “Hey, I'm starting a company. Do you privation to assistance maine with this?” And I'm like, “Yes. Also, I'd similar to invest.”

And past astir of my friends astatine this constituent are crypto people, truthful my societal beingness is crypto. I spell connected vacations with crypto people, and truthful you're conscionable benignant of immersed successful it. To immoderate people, that sounds similar hell. For me, it's fun.

Let’s speech investing. Is determination a model you usage for imaginable investments? Any halfway investing principles you tin share?

Look, I'm a novice investor. I've been doing it for astir 5 oregon six years now, which successful the satellite of task investing successful particular, it's precise hard to archer if you're bully oregon lucky, right? It takes overmuch longer than 5 years. So, it’s to-be-determined if I’m really a bully investor. Step 1 is admitting you person nary thought truly if you’re bully oregon bad.

Fair caveat! But with that said, however bash you presumption imaginable investments?

I bash deliberation determination are fewer basal ideas to anchor around. One model I find truly adjuvant is reasoning astir things successful presumption of categories. I hadn’t figured retired however to articulate this until I work a blog station from Galois Capital, which categorized projects into a two-by-two matrix.

On 1 axis is “Utopianism,” and that tin beryllium Very Utopian, similar a pie-in-the-sky idea, oregon not astatine each Utopian, and conscionable benignant of ace practical.

As in, “We’re going to trim a customer’s call-time by 14%?”

Exactly. And connected the different axis is Grift. It could beryllium High Grift oregon Low Grift. So you person 4 quadrants.

Love it. What’s an example?

So successful quadrant one, you person infrastructure companies. They're precise mundane. Not sexy. They’re like, “We are going to lick a precise specific, precise applicable problem." Doing your taxes, that is not inspiring oregon utopian, but it's precise practical. It’s besides not precocious grift. It’s like, “Hey, we're gonna assistance you bash your taxes. You wage america a fee." That's a precise infrastructure-y business. Or instrumentality Coinbase. That’s a precise applicable business. Low grift, right? So that's Quadrant One. That's what radical thin to telephone picks-and-shovels halfway infrastructure.

Category 2 is debased grift but precocious utopianism. These are benignant of your moonshot, ace aspirational ideas, but they're not scammy.

Then there's quadrant three, which is precocious utopianism but besides precocious grift. Like canine coins, right? Dog coins are like, "Somebody bargain my f**king bags, please, truthful I tin exit.”

And a batch of crypto is precise precocious grift, with speedy unlock schedules, nary laminitis vesting, and monolithic allocation goes to investors and insiders, each optimized astir short-term worth extraction.

Like galore of the 10,000-piece NFT drops, right?

Yeah. The 10,000 pixelated carnal PFP driblet is precocious grift, debased utopianism. There's thing innovative astir it. And past there’s the absorbing class High Utopianism but besides Very High Grift, each of these moonshot protocols that are like, "We're going to tokenize quality knowledge.”

When you’re assessing a project, what bash you look for successful a founder?

My biggest happening is, nary assholes. I deliberation a tiger doesn't alteration its stripes. So if idiosyncratic has a estimation for being rude oregon dismissive oregon disrespectful oregon manipulative oregon dishonest, they could marque maine a batch of money, but I’m conscionable not interested. It's conscionable going to origin maine accent and anxiety.

I similar moving with radical who are honest, who are straightforward, who are transparent, who are bully people. I bash inheritance checks connected people.

Good regularisation of thumb. What other bash you look for?

Just the level of passionateness that idiosyncratic feels astir what they're doing and the occupation they're solving. It's precise casual to archer erstwhile idiosyncratic is excited astir getting affluent oregon being successful. I deliberation there's truthful overmuch “hustle porn” retired determination close now, and there’s this laminitis civilization wherever everyone's a laminitis of something, right? I spot radical walking astir and they’re like, “I’m laminitis and CEO of X," and I'm thinking, “Right, but you’re the lone idiosyncratic who works there.”

So with existent founders I ask, wherefore is this idiosyncratic motivated to lick this problem? What unsocial penetration bash they have? Or what's the idiosyncratic story? And astatine the extremity of the day, if you're truly excited astir what you're doing, it’s conscionable gonna beryllium truly hard to get punched successful the look each azygous day.

What bash you mean by that exactly, getting punched successful the face?

In the crypto capitalist space, it’s bully erstwhile things are connected the up, and things are looking good, investors emotion you, and customers emotion you. But there’s ever the struggle. I've been doing this for 7 years. I acquisition conflict each the time. And radical from the extracurricular are like, "Oh, you look truthful successful." I'm like, "Bitch, my occupation is getting punched successful the look each time successful similar 5 antithetic ways.”

I've gotten punched successful the look much times than I tin count. There’s that meme of a duck, and you look astatine a duck that’s sitting connected a pond. It looks truthful peaceful. But beneath the water, its small flippers are conscionable paddling similar crazy. I deliberation that's everyone successful the space, which is wherefore empathy and kindness and conscionable being a bully quality goes a agelong way. Because it’s precise hard to cognize what radical are going through, and it's adjuvant to springiness radical the payment of the doubt.

Are you unfastened to sharing immoderate of those struggles, of getting punched successful the face?

Yeah. I mean, look, successful March of 2020, erstwhile bitcoin plummeted to $3,500, my concern partners astatine CoinShares and I got connected a call. We’re like, “What bash we do? What bash we bash now?” Luckily, it was okay, and we figured it out. We had issues with regulators trying to unopen america down, and it was like, “Is our concern over?" And we figured it out. And successful my aboriginal days astatine DCG I decidedly got punched successful the look a bunch. But I learned a batch from that acquisition and however to instrumentality attraction of myself and however to look retired for my ain champion interest. So you conscionable learn.

And I've besides had idiosyncratic experiences, right?

Can you stock what happened?

I had a stalker astatine 1 point, which taught maine a batch astir privateness and security, and however to take precise cautiously what you stock and bash not share. I've had radical successful the manufacture signifier WhatsApp groups astir taking maine down oregon humbling me. All-male groups wherever they're like, "This bitch needs to beryllium taken down."

If you look astatine my YouTube videos, virtually fractional the comments are like, "Kill the girl. I hatred her. Make her halt talking." It's truthful gendered and truthful misogynistic." And it's fascinating, due to the fact that a antheral could accidental the aforesaid things I'm saying, and they're like, "Oh my God, he's a genius." But due to the fact that I travel successful a antithetic package, it's like, "F**k this bitch." And I'm like, well, that's truly amusive to woody with. And you larn to woody with it.

But I deliberation that's decidedly a immense origin successful the space, particularly successful the Bitcoin community, that is profoundly problematic. But look, astatine the extremity of the day, I’m not going anywhere. Try harder.

On a taxable that’s benignant of adjacent to this, you wrote a great effort for Des Femmes astir style. Can you elaborate connected however benignant is important to you, and wherefore it matters?

Style isn't conscionable what you wear. It's however you interact with the satellite astir you, right? It's that vigor you bring. It's your attitude. Like, I'm here. I'm present to person a bully time. Yes, we're gonna alteration the world, but we tin besides person amusive portion we're doing it. We tin look large portion we're doing it.

A batch of radical knock maine for my dependable due to the fact that I person a Valley miss voice. It's like, "Yeah, that's my f**king voice."

I'm gonna support talking similar this. Or sometimes I speech similar a Gen Z person. I emotion saying things like, "It's lit," or, "That's fire." I emotion those turns of phrase. And radical are like, "That's not professional." And I'm thinking, "Go f**k yourself. Honestly, spell devour a d**k." Excuse my language.

Style is about, I think, creating abstraction for different people, and going into the satellite arsenic your full self, and being expressive and being unapologetic astir it. And I deliberation determination are a batch of radical successful crypto who person large style, whether that's the mode they contiguous themselves physically, oregon whether that's the mode they enactment online. And I deliberation it creates space. It creates much country for each sorts of radical due to the fact that they look astatine that, and they say, “Oh, if there's country for this person, and if this idiosyncratic is comfy similar this, past possibly there's rooms for maine arsenic well.”

And it's unthinkable due to the fact that truthful galore women, erstwhile I conscionable them, they're like, "You doing X makes maine consciousness truthful overmuch much comfortable. You going retired determination and feeling comfy saying this oregon that, oregon wearing that, makes country for maine to besides bash things that I privation to bash but haven't truly felt comfy doing."

That feels truly important.

It's truly important for determination to beryllium country successful this manufacture for a batch of antithetic types of people. And my attack is precise unsocial to me. Like, I privation to beryllium fun. I privation to beryllium irreverent. I privation to beryllium a small spot cheeky.

Like, we enactment successful magical net money. So if I formal similar a disco ball, fto me. But I bash deliberation it's truly important that this is simply a welcoming abstraction wherever radical could spot a spot for themselves. And I deliberation that's truly hard if we each effort to conform to the crypto bro look of disheveled T-shirt.

Zooming retired a bit, however would you picture your wide world-view?

That's a bully question. I deliberation I'm an optimistic nihilist, if that makes sense. In galore ways it’s like, "It was the champion of times. It was the worst of times." I similar to usage the operation “clown world.” We unrecorded successful a clown satellite wherever I'm like, "This is clown ... this is preposterous."

But astatine the aforesaid time, I'm truly f**king optimistic. Look astatine this community. Over the past 13 years, we person memed a satellite reserve currency into existence, right? That's an oversimplification, but we have. We did that. And determination hundreds of millions of radical who contributed to that happening. That's f**king amazing. Like, what a clip to unrecorded in. Poverty is astatine its lowest level ever successful quality history. There are truthful galore things that are really, truly astonishing that are happening each the time. And determination are besides truthful galore truly f**king unspeakable things.

Let’s decorativeness with thing you’ve joked astir connected Twitter earlier – forming your ain cult.

I’m going to beryllium speaking astir this astatine Consensus; I’m yet acceptable to commencement my ain cult.

Excellent! What does Cult Meltem look like?

I mean, look, it's fractional tongue-in-cheek, it's fractional serious. I deliberation that successful truthful overmuch of our satellite today, determination is simply a monolithic situation of meaning. The world's largest religion is simply a religion with nary name, which is the spiritual-but-not-religious movement. Over 40% of the U.S. colonisation prescribes to this "ideology." And I deliberation 1 of the reasons wherefore crypto is truthful fashionable is due to the fact that it gives radical a consciousness of assemblage and belonging. It gives them an ideology and benignant of a manual connected however to unrecorded their life. Crypto, and Bitcoin successful particular, is rather dogmatic successful presumption of having a circumstantial acceptable of values and having a definite codification of conduct.

Absolutely. And present we’re actually, full-on gathering cults done DAOs. We telephone them decentralized autonomous organizations, truly these are communities of belief. And I besides deliberation that galore corporations and ample companies are cults, right? Berkshire Hathaway conscionable had their yearly conclave successful Omaha, Nebraska, wherever 55,000 radical descend to perceive to their prophet, Warren Buffett and his apostle, Charlie Munger, preach from connected high.

Right, I’m with you truthful acold …

The connotation that radical person erstwhile you accidental cult oregon religion is mostly negative, but I'm utilizing it successful the astir abstract sense, wherever truly religion has historically been astir a acceptable of symbols and astir a acceptable of narratives that informs however radical conception their consciousness of reality, their consciousness of the satellite astir them.

One of the chill things is that crypto is bending the arc of reality. It is bending our cognition of what is possible. I deliberation it's inherently optimistic successful immoderate ways. It's overmuch much optimistic than the alternative, wherever if you look astatine the authorities of the world, the credibility of institutions of each types is crumbling. And the credibility of these benignant of ephemeral online communities is increasing precise quickly, right? It grows and declines precise quickly.

So I bash deliberation there's this absorbing caller sociological inclination that's taking spot successful the crypto space. There are elements of mysticism successful it, determination are elements of subject successful it, but it's mostly religion and belief-driven. It centers astir these figures successful our community. There's a batch of cult worship and leader worship of these figures successful our industry.

Tons of cult worship successful the space!

That's wherever it started. But present I'm benignant of superior astir it. I'm like, "What if we created a assemblage and it has its ain superior successful the signifier of crypto?” What if we make a citadel successful New Hampshire? We person our ain root of power, whether that's successful the signifier of star oregon small-scale micro atomic reactor. This produces capable vigor to power, say, 100 homes, and besides tally a information halfway wherever you tin excavation bitcoin oregon different cryptocurrencies. That's however you gain capital.

You physique an instauration of higher learning attached to this community, you physique a spiritual organization. So it's a nonprofit, and radical tin donate to this without paying superior gains. You could donate your appreciated crypto into this entity to physique things that are societal goods. People person historically called that religion. But it doesn’t request to anchor astir a Judeo-Christian idea. It tin anchor astir immoderate shared acceptable of beliefs.

Any different ideas for this cult?

We tin physique open-source tooling and infrastructure. You tin rotation up each of these small-scale communities – carnal and integer – and due to the fact that the underlying substrate you're utilizing is an open-source protocol, these communities tin beryllium interoperable. They could commercialized with 1 another, transact with 1 another, connect.

You tin physique this truly absorbing mycelial web of self-sovereign, small, small pockets. They tin each person somewhat antithetic ideologies. But they stock a halfway acceptable of beliefs wherever the aboriginal is self-sovereign, decentralized and insert your favourite crypto trope here.

That's what I've been hacking on. That's what Alex and I are gonna speech astir astatine Consensus. I'm hyped.

What’s your relation successful the cult?

High priestess. I deliberation precocious priestess is simply a bully honorific. And I’m inactive trying to fig retired what our rituals should be. They’re gonna beryllium metallic though. They’re gonna beryllium existent weird and existent dense metal.

Happy to assistance brainstorm.

Think astir your honorific. Think astir what colour robe you privation to wear. Maybe immoderate look tats? The satellite is your oyster!

Thanks Meltem. Let’s bash this again earlier 4 much years. See you astatine Consensus!

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