My family & friends think that I'm crazy.

That's how I know that I'm doing something right.

My name is Chris, and I just quit a very well-paying marketing job on Wall Street to pursue a career working with Bitcoin & cryptocurrency.

The thing is, since we're in such early days of this phenomenon, I really don't know what that "career" looks like yet. So, I've decided to just wade in to the community and see what comes of it.

Let's back up just a bit. For the past 18 years, I have been working in marketing for media and technology companies. I've had some pretty interesting jobs - including head of marketing for the UFC (yes, the cagefighting thing), TheBlaze (yep, Glenn Beck's company), TheStreet (my former boss Jim Cramer is a great guy - photo of him & I below), and Y-Combinator startup OneMonth.com (where incidentally I got to share an office for a while with the awesome Blockstack team).

I'm a marketer who knows how to tap into emotions using digital and traditional mediums. And, I think I'm a good business leader who has done some great work guiding startups through tough times. I've had a colorful and exciting career thus far, to say the least.

Earlier this year, I fell down the rabbit hole, took the red pill, and all of those other metaphors that we use for that magic moment when you realize that the cryptocurrency movement is an unstoppable revolution for humanity.

So, last month, I turned to my beautiful wife and said, "Honey, I'm quitting my job and I'm going to try to figure out how to spend my days just thinking about Bitcoin & cryptocurrencies." She had been living with me through the last few months of HODL'ing, so she didn't even bat an eyelash. She knew that I had to do this. And, here we are.

(It helps that I've also been a libertarian since the mid-90s, and I see Bitcoin as the best chance we've ever had to escape the tyranny of fiat currency, and tyranny in general, in the US. But that's a separate conversation that we can have.)

OK, so, I'm about a week into my career in crypto. What have I been doing so far?

• I'm pretty good at making connections. I've connected with some pretty high profile Bitcoin personalities and P.R. gurus and I'm working with all of them to develop some interesting media coverage opportunities with financial news outlets as well as mainstream news networks. I think that it's important that we control the story over the next few months, and I want to try to play a part in that.
• I've started a YouTube channel dedicated to explaining the very high-level aspects of cryptocurrency to people who aren't yet involved. You can check it out here.
• I put together a website where I'm offering to speak to anyone, any time about cryptocurrency. I want to connect with people ranging from zero-experience with Bitcoin up to Ethereum developers so that I can understand this revolution from all points of view. I've had some really awesome & eye-opening conversations so far.
• I'm developing a webinar strategy for easing the mainstream folks into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by addressing all of their objections head-on. For instance, "it's just for criminals", "it has no value", stuff like that. I'll be rolling that out in a week or two and trying to get as many people as possible into it.
• I've been talking to several ICO companies about advisor/strategist roles. I've actually been advising one - Horizon State - which is developing a blockchain solution for elections (ICO is live right now, btw). That one is pretty cool, but I'm also realizing that doing marketing for most ICOs is really more about targeting you guys and isn't really hitting my passion point of growing awareness and acceptance of cryptocurrency (no offense).
• I'm starting to hit every cryptocurrency-related meetup that I can find. Actually flying myself out to Chicago in a couple of weeks to hear Andreas Antonopoulos in-person and meet members of the Chi-town crypto community.
• Last but not least, I'm starting to create content for Steemit and loving it.

The most valuable thing that I've done so far is have conversations. Lots and lots of conversations with anyone and everyone. These conversations are making me realize a couple of important things:

1. Nobody knows where cryptocurrencies are headed, but that's not slowing anyone down one bit.
2. The knowledge gap between us (the ones that live & breathe cryptos) and the rest of the world is growing rapidly. (I'd really love to do something about this.)
3. The rest of the world is getting more and more curious about us every day, but there's something holding them back from jumping into Bitcoin.

These are problems that I'd like to help solve. I'm going to keep pushing forward, having conversations, and trying to figure out the best ways to apply my experience in this brave, new world. I have no idea where this road will lead, but I know for sure that I'm in the right place.

Thanks for reading and for your support! If you're reading this and feel like you want to bounce some ideas around, email me at the address below. I have lots of ideas, I love to talk, and I learn from every conversation that I have.

To be continued!
Chris "Crypto" Blechschmidt
cb@chriscrypto.net
My LinkedIn