When there's a gold rush, start selling pickaxes.
Some of the most successful entrepreneurs of the California Gold Rush never touched an ounce of gold, selling pickaxes, jeans, and tents to gold miners looking to strike it rich. You can even still buy a pair of Gold Rush-era Levi's to this day.
Cryptocurrencies are the new gold. Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, supports more accounts than Charles Schwab.
A new set of companies is working behind the scenes to provide infrastructure and services – pickaxes – to power the cryptocurrency and blockchain boom.
Mining ⛏️
Decentralized currencies and tokens are supported by "miners", who use their computers to process transactions in exchange for fees.
The most efficient miners make the most money, which means the battle to buy graphics cards and computer hardware is fierce.
Graphics card manufacturers are exploding. Nvidia, whose GPUs are popular with miners, has exploded.
Nvidia's stock has grown 14x in the last three years, compared to Amazon's 3x growth. It's nuts.
Exchanges 🏦
If you wanted to exchange your dollars for crypto in 2011, you'd have to arrange a meeting with someone from Craigslist at your local Starbucks. Sketchy.
Today, exchanges like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Abra allow you to buy and sell safely in minutes, all hiring engineers and designers on AngelList.
Taxes 🤑
Every single cryptocurrency trade, including exchanges between tokens, is seen as a taxable event. Just a few trades can turn into an accounting nightmare.
YC-backed Cointracker launched to help. It tracks all of your cryptocurrency wallets, exchanges, and transactions in one dashboard. They're hiring on AngelList.
At the end of the year, both Cointracker and Product Hunt Global Hackathon winner TokenTax will do your taxes for you.
We've compiled the 14 Best Cryptocurrency Portfolio Trackers, so you can protect and analyze your investments.
Hedge Funds 📈
Learning about every new token launch is a full-time job, just like following the stock market.
Cryptocurrency hedge funds are popping up everywhere. Metastable Capital and Bitwise launched last year the summer, followed by hundreds more around the world. Polychain Capital alone has raised $210M+ from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and more.
Hedge funds spend $24,000 per year for every Bloomberg terminal, one for each of their traders. The best analysts need the best tools.
Coinbase Prime is a powerful cryptocurrency trading platform for institutions. It's drastically similar to GDAX, which Coinbase publicly spun off in 2016 for more experienced traders.
Investment Banking 🏙
Token sales are the new IPO. Instead of raising money from VCs, startups sell their tokens to fund development. These token sales have been incredibly popular: almost $3B+ was raised in March alone.
Running one of these offerings requires marketing to an investor base without violating SEC regulation, just like what investment bankers do for IPOs.
CoinList spun out of AngelList last year to help blockchain companies run legally compliant token sales.
In less than a year, CoinList's infrastructure has already supported over $400M in token sales. They're hiring for every position.
Want to build pickaxes? Here's How to Get a Job at a Crypto Startup.
Hot Startups that are Hiring 🔥
💳 Stripe is eating your entire financial stack.
🌗 Calm is designing a beautiful meditation experience.
🤖 Brain is building a powerful, general-purpose Artifical Intelligence.
✌️ AngelList is innovating on the platform of innovation.
🚣 Emissary sells medical travel that you can trust.