Messari senior analysts Ryan Watkins and Mason Nystrom share advanced stories and insights behind professional growth.
Original title: “Messari Sharing: How to Become a Professional Crypto Analyst”
Finishing: Screen
Recently, blockchain data provider Messari hosted a seminar on “How to Become a Crypto Analyst” on crowdcast. Senior analysts Ryan Watkins and Mason Nystrom shared the methods to grow from crypto to professional analysts. Earlier, they also shared relevant methodologies and learning experience in communities such as Twitter and Medium. The author has compiled these suggestions for reference for those who want to become builders in the encryption field and those who are constantly improving on the professional road.
About Messari
Messari’s goal is to bring transparency to the crypto economy, to help investors, regulators, and the public understand crypto assets, and to build data tools to promote smart decisions and investments.
Maartje Bus, General Manager of Messari Hub said:
“You can think of us as the crypto version of the Bloomberg terminal. Messari provides data analysis tools related to specific encrypted assets, and you can build your own watch list. We have a very detailed overview of each asset. This part of the content is the community Contributed by analysts. Another core product of Messari is research reports. In addition, we also provide some enterprise-level tools to track the dynamics of encrypted enterprises/projects and provide assistance to exchanges and asset custodians.”
Messari believes that high-quality, widely disseminated research can help unlock the potential of the encryption field.
Analyst’s story
Ryan Watkins: Falling from the traditional investment bank into the crypto rabbit hole
Ryan Watkins graduated in 2018 with a major in finance + computer science. After working in investment banking for a year and a half, he joined the encryption field and joined Messari full-time in October 2019. Earlier, Ryan had heard a little about the encryption field. In 2017, a thing called “Ethereum” rose by more than 2000%, and he felt that he needed to look at this thing again.
“I started trading with the money I earned from the internship and learned as fast as possible to master this space that seemed to develop at a rate of millions of miles per hour. When I was a senior, I became obsessed with it, almost putting 100 % Of my free time (when I don’t go out to play) is devoted to learning this field, starting with Bitcoin. I’ve never questioned what money is, how it works, why it exists, and its purpose is What, or what’s wrong with it. I just always thought that money is useful. With Bitcoin, I started to understand and question the basic components of civilization, and I became fascinated.”
None of the above was enough for Ryan to consider leaving the lucrative investment industry. It was not until a few months later, when he learned about Ethereum and was convinced that cryptocurrencies surpassed currencies to some extent, did he decide to work in this industry.
“Under the background of declining trust in institutions throughout the Western world, cryptocurrency can provide a foundation for the development of new types of institutions that adapt to the digital age. This idea is really exciting!”
Mason Nystrom: Non-financial, technical background professional advancement road
Mason graduated with a degree in business administration and started his career at a small exchange in Hong Kong, where he fell in love with cryptocurrency. At that time, he read the article entitled ” The Apprentice: Crypto – for volunteer analysts ” by Ryan Selkis, the founder of Messari, and became a volunteer analyst for Messari after being contacted by e-mail. With Messari’s reputation and exchange-related work Experience gained from the work of ConsenSys. He is now a full-time research analyst for Messari.
Is a technical background necessary to become a crypto analyst? Mason used his experience to tell us:
“Technical background is not necessary. The field of encryption is very young, and the best way to truly become an expert is to use a large number of different protocols, which usually does not require a technical background.”
“I don’t have a traditional financial background, because (at that time) I didn’t have a passion for finance and accounting. I just took a very popular route. But as long as you are willing to invest, you can quickly understand What you are interested in, whether it is DeFi, NFT, or social token, etc., there is always an area where you can provide value. Finally, I think if you can use the skills you develop in these projects, you will be very Easily find a full-time encryption job.”
Advice on embarking on the path of specialization
Regarding how to enter the industry to become a professional analyst, Ryan and Mason gave some common suggestions:
Hands-on experience of the product
In the live sharing, one of the questions asked by high votes is: as a person with no experience in Crypto analysis, even though I have knowledge in this field. Can I participate in it, or where do you suggest me to enter?
Ryan replied:
“The industry is very young, and there are not many ways to enter this industry, but this is a good thing. The way to get in is to experience the project and learn from the use. Take the DeFi lending field as an example, spend a few days to learn Compound and understand it is How to work, and then use it. Then compare Aave, MakerDAO, you can understand how the loan agreement works. In the next step, you can compare them (competitive product analysis), see the next step of Compound How to go.”
“The research reports of institutions are a good source of learning. Institutions like Messari, Delphi, and The Block. In addition, you have to go to the project websites, read their blogs, listen to related podcasts, etc., in a variety of ways (Reading, audio, video) to understand and learn, this is exactly what we are doing.”
Mason:
“In addition to DeFi, there are various ways to participate. I have also met many different analysts who are very enthusiastic about NFT projects like Chiliz, really participate in it (and other aspects of Web 3), join These communities explore and ask questions. The members of the encryption community are very inclusive and willing to answer questions and provide information. So true participation is one of the easiest ways to level up.”
Write, keep writing!
Through writing, Ryan realized the loopholes in his thinking and really began to understand cryptocurrency.
“Maybe an idea sounds easy to perfect in your mind, but when it comes to expounding on paper, it is another matter. I studied financial and computer science theoretical knowledge in college and got an investment banking business experience. Experience, but in the practice of cryptocurrency, I found that this is a new ball game.”
Mason believes that writing can clarify ideas and follow up with the latest things in the industry.
“Nic Carter, Chris Burniske, Derek Hsue, Phil Bonello, Tony Sheng, and Kyle Samani became famous in the cryptocurrency field. They started writing blogs on blockchain topics, mostly related to investment or research. One of the highest skills you can use It’s your writing ability. Not only do you have to write good content, but you also have to have the courage to speak your own point of view. This is actually very difficult.”
Writing, what can be written about the content? Mason recommends some easier writing forms:
Share your thoughts, it may make you feel uncomfortable, overcome it! If you really want to relax, start by summarizing the long and complex texts. In this process, you will spend people reading Surprised by the lack of time. The content of the plan is very important and valuable.
Expert articles: Research concepts in specific fields. For example, liquid mining, NFTs, smart contracts, stablecoins, digital art, DeFi aggregators, Cosmos ecosystem, etc.
Walkthroughs. You did some exploration, wrote a tutorial, and told others how to do it! The big Twitter VDeFiDad is famous for doing DeFi drills.
If you don’t like writing long texts, the app makes good use of social media.
Overseas communities (the Chinese community we have Weibo), the smartest people in the cryptocurrency field use Twitter to build their brands, such as Pomp, Ryan Sean Adams, Meltem Dimirros, Arianna Simpson Nic Carter, Ari David Paul, Hasu, Tom Shaughnessy, Jason Choi et al. Just remember to be friendly and don’t be a leverage… In addition, answering questions on Quora can also help you understand cryptocurrency and enhance your brand. If you answer enough questions, you can organize it into a written essay.
During the writing process, try to show your knowledge and unique viewpoints in a specific field. Finally, note that your writing must be well structured to ensure that readers will not be confused by what you write. For a good structure, you can refer to excellent articles as templates and imitate the writing (in the Chinese community, you can find a lot of excellent templates in the “DeFi Way” public account). After writing it, read it out loud to see if the content is reasonable and fluent. If possible, find others to read, comment and feedback, and see if the article is rewarding for others.
In addition to product experience and writing, Mason also gave the following suggestions on how to find a job in the encryption field:
1. Move to a cryptocurrency city and participate in parties, events, and clubs
We are all products of the environment. If you want to be successful in technology, you should probably live where innovation takes place. If you are in a place full of blockchain activities, I suggest going to parties or community events, most of which are free.
Note to the author: In China, Hangzhou is just such a “City where innovation takes place.” Various cutting-edge encryption theme activities are being carried out in the China (Hangzhou) Future Blockchain Innovation Center, industry blockchain, blockchain technology seminars, and DeFi , NFT, Metaverse, Polkadot… The hot “2021 Encrypted Art Dance-Trends, Future and Investment Opportunities” is still impressive!
2. Be a volunteer or find a mentor
Volunteering can be a great way to gain experience and connect with the cryptocurrency world. When you are around great people, such as great mentors, their knowledge and experience will flow from themselves to others. The closer you are to great people, the more you will learn.
3. Make the most of your advantages
People with certain work experience should use it. If you have any skills or have obtained any qualifications, including: analyst (for Excel), CPA, CFA, lawyer, fearless public speaker (for voice or podcast), author (keyboard wizard), social expert, Process design experts (attention to details and operation), designers (Photoshop and graphic design), economic prices (cryptocurrency is based on incentive mechanism and game theory). If you have any of these skills, then you have a greater advantage than those currently engaged in the encryption industry. For students and young people, make the most of your time to learn new skills and gain experience.
4. Open a video channel or podcast
Maybe you are not a text worker, but you are good at making videos, especially live content, so start making some tutorial videos. Podcasts are a good format for discussing the field of encryption.
Author’s Note: The classic podcasts in the encryption field include Uncommon Core, Bankless, etc., and excellent podcasts in the Chinese community include Light Paper and Wu Shiyi (both Chinese and English). Encryption science popularization analysis Chinese videos include Mr. Block, Chen Mo Bitouq, Encryption Vision, Ma Lie Vision, etc.
5. Provide help to others
People are always searching for information to help them find the information they need. For example, organize content, news, information, data, characters, educational materials, etc. In empathy, people are not always able to tell you what they want or need. What can your unique skills and traits provide? From this, build your community network.
6. Find your cryptocurrency partner
ETH has many small partners (maybe competitors), and you should have them too. Find a friend who is as passionate as you and work with each other on any of the above topics. No one can reach the top alone and be friends with those “rich content machines”. Hasu (one of the principals of the podcast Uncommon Core), arguably one of the best researchers in the cryptocurrency field, often writes with others.
7. The best advice: do something cool
To stand out, you need to target your audience. Employers will value people who have ideas, act on their own, and make cool things. How to think different? Here are some suggestions:
- Create graphs, charts or videos to express something intuitively.
For example, the “visual thinking” of Knowledge Planet, planet master Felix has made great DeFi visual notes for DeFi and NFT
Conceive a cool project (stablecoinindex) and do something slightly different (#defi index, DeepDAO)
Leading the growth trend like social token
Make a website or newsletter, provide valuable things, such as the meeting time list of each open source encryption project, find ways to save others’ time or energy
Research a super niche topic related to blockchain and write/post your findings. It shouldn’t be superficial, but it doesn’t have to be completely revolutionary
Last message, work hard, stay humble and live a happy life!
Source link: www.8btc.com
