Today we’re doing something a little different, talking with one of our readers, someone who has come out ahead through crypto investing — though not without some stomach churning reversals along the way.

Why it matters: Cryptocurrency is often referred to as a democratizing opportunity. However, regular people rarely see stories of non-professionals placing wagers in the space. Here’s one.

Details: Canadian marketing technologist Darragh Grove-White is ahead, but not without taking some painful hits.

“I made many mistakes. He tells Axios that he’s had cryptocurrency exchanges take his money.

He was among many Canadians who lost their luck when Gerald Cotten, the founder of QuadrigaCX, died (?). in India.

State of play: Grove White is one of the lucky ones. By his account, since the Quadriga loss he’s turned around. Although there have been some wild fluctuations in that number, he’s now up about 11x over his principal.

Axios has verified the success of his portfolio.

The scoreboard: He has invested in over 180 coins, his first three purchases being bitcoin, Monero (a privacy coin — that trade is still down) and Verge, a coin with salacious affiliations.

“I have had a few that have done really well and even fewer that I knew would do really well,” he said.

The biggest loss was a token that was the right idea (blockchain finance), but the wrong company at the wrong time. His biggest win was a lucky guess about which solution to fix Ethereum’s speed problems would click with users first.

Context: While he only got into crypto in 2018 (a bear market year), he had some advantages. He is a lot more technical than the average person, given his day job.

That has worked to his advantage. He explained, “I’m just super curiosity.” In crypto, it’s not enough just to read and watch charts. A person needs to get in to understand it, he contends.

Be smart: He has been in the business for four years and sees new people arrive in waves. You can spot the new investors on Twitter and Discord — they are always looking to make a quick buck.

“This most recent cohort of noobs, their on-ramp was the Wall Street Bets experience,” he said. “A lot of the n00bs go for meme coins. They make it seem a joke to invest in meme coins.

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