Reddit co-founder bought 50,000 ETH in 2014, stash now worth over $82.2m 

Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of the social media platform, Reddit, reportedly spent $15,000 to purchase 50,000 ETH in 2014, when each coin was trading at $0.30. This haul is now worth over $82.2m at spot rates.

Alexis was so confident in the future of cryptocurrencies that he utilized the profits from an early investment in ethereum (ETH) to launch a venture capital (VC) company dedicated to the industry.

Ohanian, who back in 2019 lead a round for blockchain gaming and departed the social media behemoth in 2020, explained his early bet on the smart contracting platform to Forbes on Feb. 21 by saying he was drawn to the concept of a decentralized store of value partly because of his Armenian roots.

“The concept of a store of value that is not controlled by any one state is enormously enticing to any group of individuals who have in their consciousness or collective past any sense of persecution, particularly by a state. So, you could say that decentralized money has always appealed to me as if it were encoded into me.”

Alexis Ohanian: Reddit co-founder

He additionally revealed that he became interested in “unseizable property” when Turkish forces confiscated his family’s collection of antique carpets amidst the Armenian genocide during World War I.

How Alexis came to his decision

Ohanian stated he also used Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, and learned about ethereum because he viewed the platform as a way for developers to create non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and other assets that could not be quickly seized.

Therefore, he made his first ETH investment but later said in an interview, “in retrospect, I didn’t spend nearly as much as I should have.”

Ohanian strongly supports self-custody due to his reluctance to have his possessions seized. He protects some of his most precious crypto assets by keeping them off exchanges more open to government scrutiny.