how to found a cryptocurrency exchange without going to prison

it's harder than it looks

Ever think about starting a business, making friends, and securing a lifetime of prosperity for yourself and your children? In that case, founding a cryptocurrency exchange is not for you, but consider it regardless.

First, embrace a visionary idea.

• Go ahead and steal someone else’s idea for an exchange platform.

• Think about the ground-breaking ideological implications of what is now your idea—centralizing technology that was designed to be decentralized, evading taxes, and so on.

• To start securing real users, your business needs to appeal to Gen X Redditors with disposable income. Plainly, this means you need to post occasional ask-me-anything threads and advertise on left-of-center news commentary podcasts.

• Similarly, your idea needs to appeal to a certain kind of NYC media type who will refer to you as a “genius underdog” and neglect to mention any technical aspect of your business in their writing.

Assemble a powerful team.

• You need about a dozen people who are willing to get close to one another. I mean really close.

• Only hire people who are true believers in your exchange’s stated mission. (Making money.)

• If you hire someone famous for anything outside of crypto, they’re going to bring too much attention to the exchange and get you sent right to prison. Think you’ll be fine with the B-tier 90s actor you saw at Balthazar? Go ahead and find his PR contact. See what happens. I dare you.

• No one, absolutely no one, should be hired who has access to something called a “family attorney.”

• Make sure that your ops guy is the type who does not “winter” in the same place he “summers.” Even more crucially, he needs to be able to note in pitches that he’s “admittedly a little light on those details in the project’s current stage.”

• For engineering, find a software person who currently makes eight figures in total compensation (promise them nine) and who evangelizes effective altruism for the poor (anyone making less than seven).

Champion industry-leading business practices.

• Now here comes the most important part: when you learn the sum of your client deposits, you might get excited, but you can NOT — I repeat NOT — hand them over to your loosely affiliated trading firm. It’s tricky to remember this part, so you might want to write it down!

• To really succeed in this unique industry, you’ll need to dial up your charm to a 5/100. You’ll also need to stand out intellectually. Have you considered an all-intestine diet? (Women founders, however, are expected to lean in until their body resembles a Fibonacci spiral. Work it girl!)

• Promise impossibly high returns. You’d think it would matter, but it doesn’t.

• The properties you purchase for your parents should ideally be under ~$5 million each.

• Angel investors, venture capitalists, twenty-two-year-old women from Hinge — all of these people might ask tough questions, so bear in mind that you only have a few years in this business at most. Delay, delay, delay.

Remember the end-game.

• Uh oh. Ok.

• It looks like one of your co-founders took a plea deal. It’s not looking good.

• But you’re not worried. When they offer you the Enron attorney, tell them you don’t need him.

• Why?

• You’ve had an AI chatbot attorney in your AirPods this whole time. In fact, it’s been continuously reading aloud the Constitution word for word. What lawyer can do that?

• Explain to your AirPods that seventeenth century British maritime law and the Space Bill of Rights aren’t relevant in this case.

• Alright, so maybe it’s still not looking good for you. I suggest pretending you’re Matthew McFayden in Succession.

• I think you’ll be ok. There might even be tennis courts.