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Mister Novo As a Mirror of Socio-Economic Darwinism

28 August 2018 13:40, UTC
Daniil Danchenko

Сryptoverse is a complicated place. Every day dozens and dozens of thousands of US dollars roam around the crypto ecosystem. Also, a big part of its natural order are so-called “Influencers.” Those are different people and using the adjective “different” I seriously keep in mind 100% various folks. There are traders, financial analytics, CEOs, bitcoin evangelists, sociologists and social networks actors that dabbled into crypto, all of them have tremendous, unprecedented word power in the world of crypto.

This list is relatively large, as there are people like Roger Ver, with his great preachy attitude towards crypto, controversial statements and charity work. We also have someone like Tomas Lee from Fundstrat, with his carefully calculated analysis and strategy that can part the digital currency oceans with little to no words. There are people like Dan Morehead from Panthera capital, with his evaluation of the market and famous opinion on the matter that “depends on the point of view” And here is  another type, like mister Novo.

Michael Novogratz or Novo, as his friends call him, is a veteran of the financial world; original bitcoin millionaire, a real bigwig in the crypto space. With his more than stellar track record and worth of storytelling experience in the world of “big money” he is just a top-notch cream of the crop in the world of finance. That is understandable if not obvious - he is a billionaire twice, supports sports, and as if it were not enough, he is a military helicopter pilot. This man is a good role model for every 11-year-old boys for sure.

His career is pretty much a movie worthy too as he managed to make at least three fortunes on the “mean streets” of Wall-Street. This single fact makes him very vivid among most of his peers, more than a solid reason to call him a true “shark” in the world of finance. However, there is a catch. Yes, Novo made three fortunes, but he also lost 2 in the process.

Back in 2015 Fortress Investment Group evaluated actions of Mike’s company and decided to close it down. The reason was simple - for two years in a row, he couldn’t show any numbers pleasing enough. Capitalism is relatively straightforward in that sense. He was losing money, and he got out of the loop. Assets were liquidated, investments were returned to the people.

Novo showed himself as a shining example of someone who felt himself fine in the weird socio economic Darwinism that was ruling the stock market. He was coming out on top each time when he was facing difficult situations that were emerging from time to time. That had been long before he entered the world of crypto jungles that was ruled by the “Adapt or die” motto. Mr. Novogratz was an avatar of this crypto world that survived a right career ending apocalyptic more than once.

But even with someone with his track record  that was a toughie. After something like this, a lot of traders and even senior managers are forced to retire, to change their second name and continue on living as some independent financial advisers in midwestern suburbia.

But that was not the Novo’s case. Furthermore, he was doing perfectly fine. The thing is - back in 2013 he invested in bitcoin and bought $7 mln worth of bitcoin at the cost of $60 per coin only which made him a reasonably wealthy person after.

However, that was not enough for Mike. Later on he personally and his new company, Galaxy Investment invested in AlphaPoint company that helps institutions launch trading platforms and tokenize assets with blockchain technology. That was one of the starting points when he and Galaxy Investment became one of the headliners in the world of crypto on the Wall-Street, which was still super skeptical about the whole crypto thing. In fact, Novo himself wasn’t entirely sure that crypto verse was a legit story, in fact, he once admitted that it might be a “biggest bubble of our lifetimes”

Mike acted accordingly - he started to talk about how “Irresponsible” it was to not invest in bitcoin and how “Herds of institutional investors are moving in crypto” or how each and every investor should have crypto in the portfolio. Considering that it was coming from a person with a reputation of a legend in the finances, it was more than enough to think that it might have been the worthwhile idea to invest in “people’s gold” when someone like Novo was saying that it would launch “to the moon” at some point.

Alternatively, maybe it was not. Galaxy Digital, Mike’s bank continues to stumble on the “bright and well-lit road to the new economic world that is going to be created by bitcoin”. According to the reports that they published they lost

$134 mln within the q1 of this year. Furthermore, not so long ago they took another “beating” when they got listed on the TSX, third largest stock exchange market on the North American financial stage. Within the first day, they have received a significant hit and lost whooping 20% percent of the prices.

However, let's “hold our horses” here and be fair. The point is that this might have nothing to do with Mike’s professional qualities. In fact a lot of the issues that he faced were simply unavoidable, and he had no real choice but to adapt to the dire situation. Alternatively, coincidence has nothing to do with it, which leads us to the conclusion.

“Influencers” are gasoline for the light of the bitcoin revolution that feeds the whole idea of “people’s gold.” In fact, that is extremely unlikely that without them crypto would’ve become as large as it is right now. However, we shouldn’t forget one thing - good intentions are not something that automatically equal to altruism. And influencers like Novo and Co are well aware about the mathematics progression as the more people invest in the “cause” - the more money is there in it. And well, no one said that “People’s gold” couldn’t belong to the activists behind the movement.