Almost 7 years ago when my former co-founder described Adam Ludwin (at RRE at the time, investor in companies including Vine, Kik, Slack, and Paperless Post, now CEO & Co-Founder of Chain.com, and one of the earliest to believe in the possibility of Turf Geography Club) as the next Fred Wilson, I was skeptical but curious.

Today, he's one of the clearest thinking crypto truth tellers, translating complicated new terrains to regulators, blockchain devs, crypto speculators, and new consumers entering the market.

“I think you have to look at it from the perspective of the buyer and the seller mentality,” Ludwin said of the current digital asset market. “In essence, it is currently rational to be irrational as a buyer [or] a seller in this market.”

If you’re not aware, more than $3 billion has been raised through ICOs since the beginning of 2017 (according to Coinschedule). For those who don’t know the first thing about ICOs, check out Laura Shin’s in-depth piece about this new financial phenomenon from earlier in the year.

The Buyers of ICOs

When discussing the kinds of people who are participating in ICOs and token crowdsales during his appearance at the public meeting, Ludwin was quick to point to those who have already made large sums of cash by speculating on the prices of bitcoin and ether over the past few years.

“On the buyer side, there are many, many people who invested early in bitcoin, made a tremendous amount of money and now have, effectively, a house money effect weighing on them where it’s found money — it’s a windfall — and they’re diversifying into every new project that comes along because: Why not?” explained Ludwin. “If you’ve made money, you might as well say, ‘I’ll keep going.’”

Ludwin also pointed to those who sat on the sidelines while bitcoin and ether went up a hundredfold or more because they didn’t understand the technology as probable buyers of new digital assets.

“Now, you almost have this inverted mindset where you tell yourself, ‘Alright, I have to look for things I don’t understand, and the more confusing it is, the better investment it probably is,’” said Ludwin. “It’s a very perverse mentality, obviously.”