Experiences and Personal Statement of Ryan Wright: driving force behind Growers International
Hello,
My name is Ryan Wright and the time has come to introduce myself officially to the cryptocurrency & cannabis growing communities.
Cannabis
I’ve been professionally in the cannabis industry for almost 8 years. That being said, I have been appreciating the benefits of cannabis most of my adult life. One of my first jobs while still in high school was trimming for a large local grower who happened to be the cousin of a close friend. I fell in love with cannabis and wanted to learn more about other aspects of the industry.
I got my start in horticulture as a small scale personal grower and helping out in my friend’s grow rooms. After making some stake as a grower, I was looking for bigger opportunities. A friend of mine recently opened a hydroponics store so I began working for him and managing the shop. We were able to open several locations and business was great for about 5 years until local laws changed and the marketplace became less lucrative. It was at this time that my friend left the business and I stepped up to help his partner keep the company afloat.
In 2014, I travelled to Taiwan to get married and set up residence. During my time in Taiwan, I would continue to offer web related services to the business. I came back to California last year to re-establish my cannabis industry connections. Since I’ve been back, business has been great and I still offer my skills and connections for tech support, web work / social media, billboard design, marketing, etc. to my friends in the industry.
Currently, I maintain my own 10 light grow room as well as being partnered on several other grow operations throughout Central California. As a collective, we grow anywhere from 6 - 10 different strains at a time.
Last year (November 2016) I opened a small medical marijuana dispensary with a few other friends. We had a great time and helped a lot of patients in the process. We were closed within a few months due to zoning restrictions. We had drawn a lot of attention to ourselves by having a famous rapper visit the store and share pictures of this on his instagram. This media plug was a major boost of attention right in the beginning of the business and I feel it may have brought just a little too much attention. We had the local news company come out and interview us, this resulted in the local law issuing us the citation. It was a fun time and a great lesson for sure, I met some great friends and patients. I even met some cool cannabis lawyers. Opening a dispensary was really fun and I’d like to do a new location in 2018.
Cryptocurrency
I got into Bitcoin during the first BTC Mt. Gox bubble of December 2014. I was intrigued by the mining aspects of the currency as I have been a tech nerd all my life. I started mining Dogecoin and selling $DOGE paper wallets on eBay. I quickly became the top reseller for physical dogecoin wallets and I was able to make a good profit from my effort.
I used this profit to purchase more BTC and I started to do research on the coin creation business. I found a group of like minded people and we brought to life a currency called “EMC2 - Einsteinium”. The main purpose of the coin was to fund scientific research. It was a really cool project and we were able to donate a good amount of money to several publically voted scientific projects.
Sadly, several EMC2 foundation members left the team after a major flaw was found in the donation process. It wasn’t long before I was the only one left developing the coin. I was still learning about being a developer at the time and the community was pushing for more tools and funding. It was at this time that I was contacted by an individual who had a team that was ready to carry the project long-term. I had just moved to Taiwan and this turned out to be the best thing I could do for the coin. I took a backseat and let an individual by the name of “Armis” and his team continue as lead developers. Although Armis is no longer with EMC2, the rest of the team is continuing development and I have an open dialog going with the dev team. I am still an investor.
Creating the coin taught me a lot about what it takes to be a coin developer and I began to perfect my skills and offer my talents to other coin creators who needed some extra ideas, style, marketing, tech or support. I was the backbone behind several currencies made by different dev teams in early to mid 2015. Someone I had met during the process of EMC2 by the name of “Bob” AKA “Bobsurplus” became a friend and trading partner. We began working together on coin development projects. I took the path of the man behind the curtain, Bob cared more about being the frontman. This combination resulted in some pretty powerful coin moves in that time. We would join with other coin creators and assist them in bringing up their community, market, building support and guiding them to success. These efforts often had a very positive result on the price of the coin we were attached to.
To be the man behind the curtain, I created an alternate persona by the name of “Gekko” AKA “crypto.gekko” and played the role. We quickly gained a following online and people were trying to join us in our efforts to the point where we decided to form an elite crypto trading group. This trade group was called “Altcoin Pros”. At the height of the group there were nearly 20 paid members from all walks of the planet. As a group, we would pool our talents and come up with various strategies and contact developers who were interested in joining us in these concepts. This method just got bigger and bigger, to the point where we were being contacted by major exchanges to collaborate some very large scale projects. This led to the biggest project that I was a part of and one of the biggest of the time (late 2015). We were contacted by an exchange to launch BITBAY ($BAY) with our skillset. I flew to China and made a deal with the owner of one of the top crypto exchanges in the east. As this is past news, I will refrain from going into specifics and details at this time. I’d only like to say that most of the statements online about what happened with $BAY are roughly 25% true. There were a lot of private deals and agreements made that I will continue to hold private. I have a lot of respect for those I met with in Shanghai and the utmost respect for my associates who still continue developing $BAY to this day. They are doing amazing work. I am still an investor.
By the end of 2015, I was both loved and hated as the role created for myself was becoming more enigmatic and subversive. My personal identity was Doxed on bitcointalk but I really didn’t mind. In fact, I do not mind at all to put my name and information out there. I did radio interviews, skype conferences, etc. I’m willing to explain what happened in detail to anyone who may have been affected by our moves or interested in knowing more about that time. There may be some amount of backlash because of “Gekko” but I will face it head on and be forthright with everything that happened as long as it doesn’t jeopardize my vow of privacy to those I made agreements with. I’d like to bring in those who know about the skillsets of Gekko and his past into following Growers International and being part of our community.
There are many more details to the above statement regarding my role as Gekko in the year 2015. There is so much to define that I just barely touched on the primary details of that time period.
To read a much more stylistic depiction of the above, check out this link. I am referred to “The Salamander” in the story.
“The story of bobsurplus”Here is a statement by David Zimbeck (Lead Developer of Bitbay)
As with statements and stories written online, the above should be taken with a grain of salt. The only people who know the full truth and the inner workings of the deals were those involved. There are still many facts about all of those projects that have never seen the light of day. I have no intention of shining any new light here. This is just a statement acknowledging my involvement.
My Wife / My Light
Around the first quarter of 2015, I moved to Taiwan and married my wife. I currently have a residence there where she currently lives. We both travel back and forth in order to see each other as much as possible.
I met her on an online forum when she was looking for help with her website. I decided to offer some of my connections in the tech world to help put a professional site and app together. We quickly hit it off and I met her in Las Vegas to help her run a booth at that years C.E.S. (Consumer Electronics Show) conference. After that it was all about staying together at all costs. I currently help her run her business in Taiwan, we do custom iPhone and Android cell phone cases based on photos of people's pets.
My wife gives me the drive and passion that I’ve always needed. I truly feel she is meant to be in my life and our marriage is true destiny.
Music / Rock Band
When I was a child I became obsessed with drumming and percussion instruments in general. I played snare drum in my middle school band and got my first drum-set when I was 13. The next logical step is creating my first band, which I did at age 14.
By the time I was in high school I was the primary drummer for 4 different music classes (Jazz, Marching, Classical and Pep). I played drum set, marching snare / bass / quints and various percussions instruments all through high school. After high school I started my own musical project called “Ryan Wright eXperience - RWX” in which I played all instruments and did the vocals as well. This was in the early days before myspace / social media and I started spreading my music around on sites like Garageband.com and PlanetGig. Some local musicians from nearby cities took notice of my songs and we formed a full band for the project. I quickly realized that my drumming skills far outweighed my talents on guitar / vox and I dedicated my life to drumming and pushing the band. We changed our name to “Fata Morgana”.
Within a few years we were able to establish ourselves as a higher level local musical act and it wasn’t long before we were taking charter busses to SF and LA to play shows at places like the Whiskey A-go-go and The Roxy. We were able to make some high profile contacts at the time and the band was getting bigger. As we got bigger, so did my brother’s addictions and our popularity ended up hurting him. Unable to continue playing shows, we called it quits. I sold the band name and website to the drummer of Primus, Tim Alexander. This was an important moment and awakening in my life. I continue to play drums as a form of meditation and stress relief. I will occasionally help friends or local bands if they are in last minute need of a drummer or need a solid drum track for a recording. Other than that, I am just a deep lover and connoisseur of talented music.
Technology as Art
I love computers and technology since as far back as I can remember. I would literally take apart calculators and radios and try to learn how the components worked. This evolved into a love for computers and building custom PCs. One of the first ways I was able to make money in high school (other than trimming cannabis) was by doing computer repairs for my friends' parents and our teachers. I began learning JAVA and JS programming and it wasn’t long before I started making online flash games. I would make games based on “Social commentary” at the time. I feel computers are the link between the mathematical and the artistic. The internet is our global consciousness and the next step in human evolution. Recently, the world of VR has intrigued me and I’ve taken up learning UNITY on my off-time. Before GI, I had a little time to do an alpha build of a 3rd person exploration experience. Now all that is on the back burner. I’d love to find a way to incorporate VR into my crypto repertoire.
Worker Bee
I’ve always been an extremely hard worker with a positive work ethic. I put the same attention to detail into physical labor work as I do with my creative and mentally driven jobs. To be considered as a “jack-of-all-trades” is an understatement. I am very well versed in many aspects of life due to all my varying experiences throughout. Life keeps on growing and growing!
Final thoughts?
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like me to elaborate on any of the above. I am an open book.
Get in touch at http://growersintl.com/slack
Thank you for your time and attention. Enjoy Growers International!
Ryan Wright, 34
Lead Developer of Growers International
California, USA / Taipei, Taiwan
