Talking Crypto #65 - Andrew Thurman

Primer: Andrew Thurman has an interesting backstory. He worked for Chainlink before founding his own smart contract data marketplace. Eventually, he became a journalist, covering the news at Cointelegraph and CoinDesk. Get the inside scoop on the life of a crypto journalist.

Background

• Was in graduate school doing his Masters in Creative Nonfiction. Was also teaching journalism

• Started investing in 2017 right at the top

• Researched a ton about Chainlink. Met others who wanted to start a business centred on the Chainlink ecosystem

• Chainlink node operators need to communicate with data providers. Node operators and data providers can also be the same party

• Built the legal and tech framework to allow node operators to more efficiently deal with data providers on a data call billing model

• Chainlink invited them to present at Web3 in Berlin in 2019

• Co-founded a smart contract data marketplace which went on to become the Oracle Network API3

• One of his first calls was with Bobby Ong of CoinGecko. Reached out to him to get a sense of how the industry works and to have them to become the data provider for their marketplace

Does He Have A Background In Startups?

• Did not have a background in startups

• Did a patchwork of jobs ranging from a boiler room selling bonds to building fences, from fast food to stocking shelves

"I mean, if you got fast food experience, you're fit for crypto, right." - Gabriel Haines

• Worked a lot of weird jobs before entering crypto

Time At Chainlink

• Running business development campaigns for them

• Official title was Senior Partnership Manager

• Worked with Daniel Kochis to reach out to projects and get them to join the Chainlink ecosystem

• Was with Chainlink from 2019 through 2020

• Different departments in Chainlink would coordinate deep level technical integrations with high profile announcements

Moving From Business Development To Journalism

• Contributed to the most successful BD campaign for Chainlink. Token outperformed during the bear and bull market

• Wanted to do something altruistic for the space

• Thought of writing fairly and accurately about the space as a form of public service

• Started out by freelancing. Did pieces for Cointelegraph and CoinDesk. Pitched his service to other folks as well

• Cointelegraph hired him

• Has a personal record of publishing 5 articles in a single day

Experience Working At Cointelegraph

• Really good experience working for Cointelegraph

• Cointelegraph has a bad rep because of its unknown owner

• Gabriel: Cointelegraph published an article regarding Andre Cronje and the eminence rug in a biased fashion. Found the publication very odd

• Andrew was the one who replied to Gabriel and the latter ignored him because he worked at Cointelegraph

• Found that people treated him differently while he was at Chainlink versus when he was a journalist

• Doesn't get invited to seed rounds anymore because people think that journalists are poor

"For everyone listening, Andrew is not poor, okay? He's worked at a fast food place."

- Gabriel Haines

Moving From Cointelegraph To CoinDesk

• Crypto media is suffering from a decline in influence. Bloomberg and CNBC are starting to cover crypto, but are coming from an uninformed place

• When reporting the news, he can provide valuable context or insight about the industry

• CoinDesk is one of the few places that has significant reach such that when he says something that's insightful, it will get picked up and have an impact

Why Doesn't He Work For Bloomberg?

• Doesn't think that they will hire him based on his resume

• Made fun of Bloomberg on Twitter a lot

Most Exciting Stories He Covered

• Prides himself on covering stories that are outside the box in terms of what's normally covered. Differentiates between popular things to cover versus important things to cover

• One of his favourite examples was when he covered the trend of people using liquidity pool tokens as collateral in lending protocols. There's potential for such articles to introduce Black Swan risks leading to cascading liquidations

• Spoke to Tarun Chitra and learned that liquidity pool positions are in fact more stable than single-sided form of collateral

• This is the kind of work he strives to do, which is not something you'll read in Bloomberg

• Reminds him of an article on the history of how telephones were introduced in America. The article summarized that the news during that time focused on controversial aspects rather than on the technology aspect. This is what is happening in crypto news today as well

• Too often, writers just write what fits their preconceived biases or what they assume will be the biases of their audience

• Through time, the shift will happen in people's own minds. This will be the same for blockchain and DeFi as well

Experiences On Crypto Excursions

• Have not been on many trips since he started out as a journalist during COVID. Older journalists are the ones with stories to tell on the parties they have attended

• Got to know people online

• Found that it's not a field that is welcoming to new writers. Need to have an established network of contacts who will vouch for you

• Did a lot of legwork to reach out to young teams and anonymous teams

• Early few in BadgerDAO and SushiSwap

"But I think that was the hardest I've ever been flexed on. Like somebody cancels an appointment and to make it up to me like invites me on the fucking yacht. Like that was shit DeFi is doing well for some folks, you know?"

- Andrew Thurman

• Bitcoin Miami was the first time he got the chance to talk to a lot of people in person

• The DeFi people were hanging out at the satellite events during Bitcoin Miami

• Interviewed Sam Bankman-Fried. Saw Michael Saylor surrounded by security. Stani had to cancel his interview with him but invited him to his yacht

• Spoke to a mining company who is setting up mining operations in Latin America. The company interfaced with governments and they are treating Bitcoin as a national security issue since a ton of the power supply will be directed to mining operations

What Is The State Of Journalism?

• Lionel Barber, the former head of the Financial Times, wrote an essay called Trump & Truth. It discusses that a certain kind of play acting of neutrality from the press very nearly led to the destruction of democracy

• Our reality gets warped when we portray both sides as always being inherently equal despite one side being obviously better than the other

• Notices that when a project gets big enough and the founder gets PR training, the responses become less authentic (e.g. "That's a great question"; no one talks like that in real life)

"I asked you what you're having for lunch? That's not a fabulous question. You're lying to me."

- Andrew Thurman

Bitcoin Community

• Bitcoin is still the most important asset by market cap until DeFi TVL eclipses Bitcoin's market cap

• One sentence explanation for Bitcoin as digital gold is a more compelling narrative than DeFi at this moment

Could NFTs Push A Simple Narrative For Ethereum

• Did not expect NFTs to become this big this early

• We are still grappling with what they are as an asset class and how they interact with the rest of the market

• Thinks that the NFT sector is in a bubble

• Going to take another 5 years before the technology really gets established

Embargo On Information

• Crypto industry takes embargo on information very seriously. Lots of informal rules and, if they are broken, you might not get information anymore

• This is not how a good news ecosystem is supposed to work. Too much power is given to the PR agencies and the companies themselves to frame and shift the narrative

• Least favourite part of his job

• Enjoys working with smaller teams and anon teams because of less restrictions

People He Enjoys Talking To

• Anyone at Gauntlet, because they are the biggest brains in the room

• Kain Warwick is gregarious and a really interesting character

• Sam Bankman-Fried is always going to give a good quote

• Nate Alex is one of the best guys on NFTs

• People from eGirl Capital

"I think it would be hard to overcome the fact that you were talking to a cat, a blueberry, a couch. Might be too difficult."

- Gabriel Haines

Projects That He Is Particularly Excited About

• Gaming sector is interesting

• Rarity looks like it's really fun. Andre is having fun for the first time in a while. Magical things happen when he's having fun

• BarnBridge is launching some cool new stuff

• Need to pay attention to DeFi on Solana

• Pyth is interesting as an Oracle service

• Mango Markets and their orderbook-based marketplace

• dYdX and their token launch

All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.