Nicholas Merten, a.k.a DataDash

This article was originally published by our French franchise partner fr.cryptonews.com.

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Nicholas Merten, a.k.a DataDash, is a young entrepreneur with libertarian ideas and one of the most popular YouTubers in the crypto industry with over 315,000 subscribers.

Here is what he has to say about himself and his journey into crypto.

When people ask you “What is your job?”, what do you answer?

My job is to take the interests that I share with my audience to the next level. On a daily basis, I spend hours researching cryptocurrency and other markets such as equities, commodities, and traditional currencies. The reason I do this is because I trade markets from a macro perspective. I’m trying to give a big picture and show how intermingled crypto is with the world’s economy. It's rare that someone can turn their passion into their day-to-day job, but I’m one of those lucky individuals.

How did you get into crypto?

I found out about Bitcoin in 2011. At the time, I was trying to understand the global financial system and I was going back to the same conclusion that we need to find an alternative system that would not leave banking institutions with the mantle of responsibility over our money. Then, by chance, I stumbled upon Bitcoin. Sadly, my cynical nature kept me from exploring the technology further and for years I had no idea what it is. This was the case until 2016, when I read the Bitcoin whitepaper. It was like a slap in the face. I wasn't mad that I missed a wonderful investment opportunity, rather, I was upset that the important thing in dismantling the archaic banking system had been in front of my eyes for years.

What is your educational and professional background?

For more than seven years, I've immersed myself in just about every documentary, book, and Medium in order to understand economics, finance, business, and politics. Just a few years ago, I was pursuing a double major in business with a focus on finance, however, even ending the last semester of my freshman year with a 3.5 GPA, I dropped out. Then I joined Praxis [a 12 month startup apprenticeship], which lead me to working for a startup in Silicon Valley and founding the largest channel on cryptocurrencies.

The first DataDash YouTube video that we found was posted on July 12th 2017. Is it the first crypto video you ever made?

Yes, and with great humility, I thought no one would ever care to watch it.

What was your initial goal with this channel? Is it still the same?

The original goal of my channel was to teach people data analytics and SQL [a domain-specific language used in programming.] The channel was a part of a personal development project for an educational platform as I was pursuing a career in data analytics. However, it turned out that my two videos I did on crypto markets were very popular for a channel with no subscribers. So, I kept doing my research and producing videos. The rest is history. I would have never guessed that people would want to hear me ramble about markets on a daily basis.

I've started to provide more of a macro-perspective in my videos, covering different areas of finance, such as the stock market and commodities. This was not only to broaden content I produce, but also to demonstrate how many of these markets correlate with crypto, which excites me the most.

In your opinion, what problems cryptocurrencies could fix?

Many believe that blockchain will help revolutionize the way companies operate, and I don't doubt it will. However, I feel that crypto will mostly affect even more important thing in our daily live - it’s currencies. Controlled by central authorities, traditional currencies have yet to see challengers to their dominance. Now, as many economies are experiencing debt, currency, and geopolitical crises, I think it's only a matter of time until we see a massive wealth transfer from fiat to the new era of decentralized cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrency properties such as immutability, censorship resistance, and finite supply will change the game.

If you had a chance, what would you tell Satoshi Nakamoto?

"Thank you for giving me hope that financial sovereignty in the 21st century can become a reality. Are you satisfied where Bitcoin is heading?"

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