Hot topics are who manipulates bitcoin, why it is necessary to get rid of dollars in a crisis, whether bitcoin is a CIA project and what threatens this cryptocurrency. Over 64 thousand people have subscribed to his channel, but much more are watching. Behind the entertainment content lies a thorough analysis. In reality.
Gennady Merensky has an “outstanding” resume: in the past – Executive Director of the Strategic Communications Department, Senior Vice President of Ural sib Bank, Deputy Director for Regional Policy and GR at Gazprom Neff, in the present – Executive Director of the Synergy Venture Fund Innovations”. In an interview with Invest Foresight, he spoke about his views on cryptocurrency, blogging and the upcoming financial crisis.
— You have held top positions in Uralsib and Gazprom Neft. Why did you go into venture capital?
– Working in large companies is often associated with the implementation of a bunch of regulations, formalized reports, KPIs, reports on the implementation of KPIs by subordinates, a bonus system, building an internal policy, performing tasks that you disagree with, and punishing initiatives of any type. This is suitable for narrow specialists: the best employee of a large corporation is a “man in a case”.
In addition, large companies are systems that live by their own written laws, and systems never choose the best, they choose the right ones. As a rule, the best specialists are not needed for systems, they are harmful and contraindicated. And the abundance of simulacrum activity can piss off any motivated employee. There are many materials about this on the net, I would not like to delve into this topic, since it is interesting in itself and deserves a separate interview or even a long article.
— I first earned cryptocurrency in 2011 by mining on my home computer. I joined the pool, which was organized by a programmer from Moscow, Mikhail Kalinin, and was in the second ten of the pioneers. Then I was mining about 3.5 BTC per day on the simplest AMD video card.
I managed to earn $300-600 a month, but in the end my computer was hacked and all the bitcoins that I did not have time to sell were stolen. Back then, the only available Bitcoin wallet was the original Bitcoin QT. Naturally, there was no encryption, and it turned out to be vulnerable to penetration into the infected computer.
— There are many stories about the first bitcoin transactions that may seem crazy now: someone bought a T-shirt for a few bitcoins, someone ordered sushi for a few tens of bitcoins. Do you have such a story?
– For example, I sold 600 bitcoins and bought an AMD 7950 video card, which was already mining significantly less bitcoins, since the complexity of mining at that time was growing every week. In general, then I sold more than 3,000 bitcoins at a price of $2 to $4 apiece.
— You have quite an interesting channel on YouTube. Why do you need him? What was your purpose in opening it?
– I did not pursue the goal of becoming rich or famous – for this, there are many more talented and younger people on the Web. I posted there everything that I shot then on a film camcorder, then on a smartphone. I remember seven years ago I was at Domodedovo airport, and there was an emergency power outage due to weather conditions.
I quickly made a video about it and posted it on YouTube under the title “Collapse at Domodedovo”. Literally 20 minutes later, I was contacted by the American headquarters of Reuters and asked for permission to use the video in their news. Naturally, I agreed. It was my first money earned on YouTube. I was then amazed at how important a channel of information is UGC – user-generated content, and immediately realized that this was the future.
But I did not develop my channel, because I worked in large companies and this type of activity would be very frivolous for me. If I could return to those days, I would immediately quit all my positions and start developing the channel. But now I am sure: if a person has the desire and opportunity to shoot interesting content, you need to do it immediately and devote all your time to such a necessary and interesting business.
— Can you be called a crypto-dependent person?
– Probably not. I don’t even look at the stock exchange every day to see the rate. Those who are addicted every morning, without washing up yet, begin to convulsively grab a smartphone in their hand and focus on the bitcoin rate or read a couple of dozen news stories in anticipation of a change in trend or some kind of collapse. I’m not like that. I know for sure that cryptocurrencies have a future, and in a few years it will become the dominant mode of existence for finance around the world.
– You invest in startups – for example, in Fat Cats. What interesting crypto and blockchain projects have you invested in and why?
— I invest money in startups when I believe in the team and I know for sure that the founders do the project not to make money, but primarily because they are crypto enthusiasts and believe in cryptocurrency. They also understand that the best contribution to the development of blockchain and cryptocurrency is the creation of such related infrastructure as stores, merchants, exchanges.
exchangers, crypto banks, and so on. Everything that will allow you to exist in this world without fiat money. I am a moderate crypto-anarchist and I am sure that the existing cumbersome and unfair financial and banking system itself will die as unnecessary, you don’t even have to fight it, as John McAfee and aggressive crypto-anarchists like him call. Although I respect and support them all.
