Reddit co-founder bought 50,000 Ether during pre-sale, for $15K

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of social media website Reddit, reportedly bought 50,000 Ether (ETH) for just $15,000 in a crypto presale in 2014.

Ohanian, who left the social media giant in 2020, told Forbes on Feb. 21 article Coming from Armenia, he found the idea of ​​a decentralized store of value very appealing, prompting him to gamble early on Ethereum.

“Particularly groups of people who have the idea of ​​state persecution in their consciousness or collective history make the idea of ​​a store of value not controlled by a single state very attractive. So in a way it was embedded in me at the time, and in a way it made me embrace the idea of ​​a decentralized currency.”

At current prices, this investment is worth a whopping $82.5 million according to It represents an increase of 549,589% to CoinMarketCap.

He went on to describe how a family heirloom rug was seized by Turkish soldiers during the Armenian Genocide during World War I.

Ohanian, who detests seizureable property, is a big proponent of self-control, controlling the private keys of some of his most valuable crypto-related investments to make him more vulnerable to the government’s prying arms. We try to keep you away from vulnerable exchanges.

When hearing about Ethereum at a meeting with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Ohanian said the potential for developers to build a wide range of assets on top of it, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), that may not be seized. claimed to have thought there was

As a result, he made an initial investment in Ether, saying in an interview, “In hindsight, I didn’t invest as much as I should have.”

Related: Ethereum Derivatives Data Suggests $1,700 May Not Stay Long at Resistance Levels

Ohanian founded venture capitalist firm 776 in 2020, using proceeds from early investments in Ether and Coinbase to invest in 29 crypto-related startups, raising $500 million in February 2022 to fund similar investments.

In line with Ohanian’s view that bear markets offer investors the opportunity to buy assets at discounted prices, the company sees the recent market downturn as a perfect opportunity to make a long-term bet on the cryptocurrency industry. increase.

The company currently boasts over $750 million in assets under management.

Ohanian said that while cryptocurrencies are very volatile, “there are a lot of people who have a generational consciousness of seeing massive inflation,” so the volatility of cryptocurrencies is much more for these people. I pointed out that it has become a pleasant one.