Bitcoin Evangelist Vindicated
Share
A story about Andreas Antonopoulos, an early Bitcoin evangelist who lived off Bitcoin and received massive community support after being mocked.
"Andreas was the Bitcoin evangelist - when Bitcoin came out, he was going everywhere to talk about it. He wrote a Bitcoin book and spread the gospel. He was like what you need when you have a new movement - he wasn't Jesus, but he was like Paul, taking the gospel and spreading it.
He'd been doing this for years and would only take Bitcoin as payment. He would spend it on rent and coffee because he wanted to live in crypto and live what he was preaching. When Bitcoin's price kept going up, people assumed he must be a millionaire, but he wasn't because he was living off it.
Then Roger Ver, who owns Bitcoin.com, started making fun of him on Twitter, saying 'the biggest Bitcoin carnival barker for all these years didn't even make money when Bitcoin shot up in price to thousands of dollars per coin - what a joke.'
The Bitcoin community rallied and overnight, they anonymously donated to his wallet and made Andreas a millionaire in Bitcoin. People were donating because they said 'I got into it because of this guy, he's getting made fun of because he didn't profit off of this - fuck that.' It was one of the cool moments in the community."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.