Today we’re doing something a little different, talking with one of our readers, someone who has come out ahead through crypto investing — though not without some stomach churning reversals along the way.

Why it matters: Crypto is often spoken of as a democratizing opportunity, yet regular people seldom see the stories of non-professionals placing bets in the space. Here is one.

Details: Darragh Grove White, a Canadian marketing technologist, is on the leading edge. But, he took some hard hits.

“I made many mistakes. I’ve had crypto exchanges take my money,” he tells Axios.

He was one of many Canadians out of luck when the founder of the exchange QuadrigaCX, Gerald Cotten, died (?) India.

State of play: Grove-White is one of the fortunate ones. By his account, since the Quadriga loss he’s turned around. Although there have been some wild fluctuations in that number, he’s now up about 11x over his principal.

Axios has verified the success of his portfolio.

The scoreboard: He has invested in over 180 coins, his first three purchases being bitcoin, Monero (a privacy coin — that trade is still down) and Verge, a coin with salacious affiliations.

“I have had a few that have done really well and even fewer that I knew would do really well,” he said.

The biggest loss was a token that was the right idea (blockchain finance), but the wrong company at the wrong time. His biggest win was a lucky guess about which solution to fix Ethereum’s speed problems would click with users first.

Context: While he only got into crypto in 2018 (a bear market year), he had some advantages. He is a lot more technical than the average person, given his day job.

It has worked in his favor. “I’m just super curious,” he explained. It’s not enough to just read charts in crypto. He contends that one must get into crypto to fully understand it.

Be smart: He has been in the business for four years and sees new people arrive in waves. You can spot the new investors on Twitter and Discord — they are always looking to make a quick buck.

He said, “This latest cohort of noobs was their on-ramp the Wall Street Bets experience.” “Meme coins are a popular investment option for a lot of the n00bs. They invest like it’s a bit of a joke.”

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