Reimagined Finance: Investor Persona Interviews

Interview : #6 in a 10 part series

Introduction:

Hi there I’m @Abraxas_Seven and welcome to the seventh $ReFi Investor Persona Interview. If you would like to see more please see the other interviews in the series so far.

As CMO of Reimagined Finance, I explore and share insights on the major barriers for investors across the #DeFi markets and the learnings we can yield from that in our investment portfolios. This week I interview @mikeymiles_eth. This interview brings again another perspective, this time from an educator and someone who has been in public service. The stark transparency and openness of his experiences is refreshingly honest. This interview provides some real value and learnings. The journey is similar to a number of us. But @mikeymiles_eth has shown how to learn from this and take real profits while staying calm and humble. The constant, which you hear me talk to in each interview is that a $ReFi investor is looking for the long term, does their own research and has an astute understanding of investing through experience.

This interview is powerful in it’s honesty and should be one we all investors can learn from. $ReFi is committed to not just managing and farming your funds across the #DeFi space but helping to educate our communities so they can make more informed decisions across the #FaaS space and create more secure, long-term portfolios with consistent ROI’s.

So let’s dive in! And if you would like to be interviewed for the Persona Series please DM me @Abraxas_Seven on Twitter

1.Please introduce yourself as you see fit and then provide your crypto experience and involvement to date.

I feel like I’m one of the few investors in this space who doesn’t work in tech or finance. I’m a school administrator in the US, father of 3, avid cyclist with an interest in crypto. I first got into crypto very early on. I purchased some BTC because I wanted to play around on the Silk Road. I don’t recall ever actually making a purchase, but I’m fairly certain I did succeed in buying some bitcoin. I don’t like to think about it very often because if I knew what I was doing back then and still had access to my keys, I’d probably be retired. Oh well!

After forgetting about crypto for a few years, I started learning about Ethereum in 2017 and became very interested. I was too scared to jump into the realm of doing anything other than buying ETH, but I had enough faith to purchase ETH regularly with every paycheck for several years. I’m still holding and plan to long term.

In 2019, as I learned more, I became more comfortable playing around with decentralized exchanges, alt-coins and shitcoins. I made a good amount of profit on Shib (although I still sold way too early) and became motivated to rolling the dice more frequently. I had some wins, but also lots of losses. At the end of the day I’ve always been ahead, so it’s a good hobby, but the reality is I either hold too long or sell too early. Shib, for example. If I had had for another two months I would have made a profit of over $200,000 USD, instead I made about 25k. Great profit, of course, but…. That one hurts to think about.

I’ve had similar experiences with Mongoose. I saw the opportunity to buy into a meme that was making headline news. I was one of the first 300 buyers. $450 turned into $50,000 pretty quickly. I thought, “there’s no way this thing isn’t going to keep mooning!”, and, well, it didn’t!

I’m only telling you about Shib and Mongoose because it’s why I really like the FaaS model and why I’m a believer in ReFi. It’s fun to flip shitcoins, but I do not have the time or energy to do it well, and I ESPECIALLY don’t have the time and energy to learn all of the ever changing intricacies of defi- this is why I’ve trusted the ReFi team to do this for me.

2. Could you please give us a 1-minute history of your general business experience and what you do?

I’ve had non-profit experience and some government work (working for the Mayor of a large American city). For the past 15 years I’ve worked in education as a teacher and school administrator (supervising over 100 staff).

3. How did you get involved with ReFi?

I had been looking for a defi specific token to park money into for a while. I really like the idea of decentralized finance and I especially wanted to figure out a way to park money into a protocol that earned a healthy but safe yield and keep it there for a long time. I became overwhelmed with all of the protocols and realized that there really isn’t a protocol that is “set and forget”. You still need to keep your eye on your bags because even stablecoins can go under. Knowing that, when ReFi first starting bubbling up on crypto Twitter in December 2021, I was intrigued with the idea of someone else doing that work for me.

4. Do you have a crypto strategy and has that evolved since discovering ReFi and if so how?

• automatic, regular buys of ETH. This remains my biggest bag. Purposefully staking it so that I can’t FOMO into something stupid.
• ReFi, second biggest bag.
• High conviction alt coins (atom, link, ftm, avax, metis). These are medium to long term holds.
• Flipping alt coins. I have the most fun with this, and I’ve made a lot of money here, but I also keep getting rugged or I become overly emotional and ride waves down the bottom. Currently holding MRI, Snipe, Dogger and some others.

My strategy has changed in that a large percentage of my holdings is in ReFi and I don’t intend on selling for a very long time. This means I have less money to flip shitcoins with, but I’m also sleeping better at night. I think to do really well in this space you need to stay very engaged on Twitter and constantly follow memes and momentum. That’s tiring. I like it, but I don’t have the capacity for it at the moment. I like the idea that someone with more experience and knowledge is managing funds on my behalf.

5. What problems were you facing in crypto investing generally and how has ReFi helped?

There is a giant barrier to entry in crypto right now. While it’s easy to make a Coinbase account and buy something with a multi billion dollar market cap, it’s really difficult to sort through various chains and find the diamond in the rough. There’s also an issue with the signal and the noise. There’s so much noise online and not a lot of alpha. Someone you trust might shill a rug pull and then your trust is completely broken. ReFi helps with this because I completely trust the team. It’s funny, for the first couple of months of holding ReFi I listened to every Spaces, actively read all of the Telegram, listened to all the podcasts, etc. I’m doing that less now because I don’t think I need to pay as close attention. I don’t want to have to worry about it, so I’m not. At some point I’ll join the Alpha channel and re-engage when I have the time and energy to learn more, but for now, I’m fully trusting the ReFi team. Even if we remain in a bear market for awhile and ReFi’s price remains choppy, I’ll hold and not worry because this is a long term play for me.

6. What are the biggest mistakes you see when people engage crypto investing?

Speaking for myself, the biggest mistake I’ve made is cycling through my bags in search of the next great thing. FOMO is a serious problem. It’s like, “oh! Look at this new meme coin… I don’t have any money, so I’ll have to sell this other project that is currently red”, and so on. It’s a losing game.

7. What was your main concern that would have prevented you from investing? And what put your fears to rest?

In Crypto and then ReFi I initially got into Ethereum because I can see the eventual value it’ll offer the world. That’s the hardest hurdle right now for most people, you either see it or you don’t, and those who don’t think I’m insane and that I’m wasting my money investing into fake internet money. My fears were put to rest as I’ve read and absorbed the technology and culture. For ReFi specifically, I am invested in the team. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned in this space. There are so many developers who overpromise, lie, make up excuses and then disappear. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to and reading the words of the ReFi team and they’re about as genuine as it gets.

8. What are three benefits you’ve experienced as a result of joining ReFi versus other crypto platforms?

1. Set and forget. I don’t feel the need to fret about the team rug pulling or walking away from the project. They’re also in it long term.
2. Knowledge. While I haven’t jumped in as much as I’d like, the ReFi team is very clearly highly regarded in the space and are constantly sharing alpha with those willing to listen.
3. Community. This one is weird because lots of scammy projects always say things like “We have the best community”, and that usually means that people just spam a bunch of memes back and forth. The ReFi team actually seems genuinely nice and the vibes are always calm and confident. I like that.

9. What made you choose ReFi over anything else you could have done? And how important was the management team in this decision?

It’s the team. My favourite example was a huge debacle that occurred with another project, Inu Capital, in January. During a very long voice call on Telegram, Mathdroid was constantly called upon to help solve another project’s problems. It was clear from all of the comments, and listening to Math himself, that everyone in this space looks up to the ReFi team. Seeing that built up a ton of confidence in my investment. Also, seeing where a lot of similar projects have ended up (MEM rugging earlier this month, for example), it’s even more apparent how important having a trustworthy team is.

10. How has Crypto changed since you invested and what new barriers / challenges or opportunities do you see today versus when you started?

Things have changed a lot since 2017. Things seem faster now, there are more projects, and there are just so many rug pulls or disingenuous developers. Trust is now the largest commodity in this space.

11. How has your personal life changed since joining ReFi and using this system? For example — are you less stressed about investing has it helped you feel more optimistic or secure?

I’ve deleted Metamask from my phone. That’s a big one for me. I don’t need to make trades on the fly. I’ve seen a tweet before about a new project and thought “oh man I need to get some!” and then end up selling something else at a loss and buying, only to be rugged, all from the comfort of my phone! I’m done with that. I’m more interested in long terms gains now, and I truly believe the farm will be in the tens of millions in a matter of time and I’ll own a piece of that. That’s cool.

12. What surprised you the most or made you the happiest about being involved with ReFi?

I really liked that the community got to vote on what to do with distributions. I voted to send the money to the farm and I still believe that’s the right call. I think it’s great that the community is listened to and that was the first time I ever voted with my wallet, which I thought was really cool.

13. As a % how much has your investment grown with ReFi versus your initial crypto investment?

At the highest point I was about 5x my initial investment. Given the current market conditions I’m at 2x, but I truly don’t care. Flipping shitcoins, I’d care. Long term wealth wise, though, I care about the farm, and it’s growing in a bear market.

14. If you were to recommend ReFi to your best friend, what would you say?

Go to the ReFi telegram and read what the community is sharing. Read through the posts, listen to the podcasts. There is no more competent and trustworthy team in the space.

15. If someone was unsure about joining ReFi, what would you tell them?

Stop chasing memes. It’s a manipulated market and you’re probably someone else’s exit liquidity. If you want long term wealth, it’s ReFi.

16. Is there anything you’d like to add either about your crypto investing experience as a whole or regarding your ReFi journey to date?

Nope. Thank you to the team for your work!

Conclusion:

A big thank you to @mikeymiles_eth for his honesty and providing the key learnings of his journey. It is interesting to see the trial and errors and what has driven investors to $ReFi once these learnings have been experienced. The increase in ‘rugs’ comes through again and having a smart approach to learning and refining your investment approach is again key. The prevention measure for FOMO seems to be by Doing Your Own Research (DYOR). Getting to know the community and having the confidence in the management team underpin this research and decision in a long term project.

Next week brings another persona different from the others which I think you will enjoy. It shows another mindset within the $ReFI investor series, but we can track back the same underlying learnings and approaches to successful investors.

Myself and $ReFi are very grateful for all the interviews from our community that have been provided. We are committed to continue to learn about the Crypto market and ensure insights help $ReFi become a better project day-by-day! And hopefully you’re investment strategy.

See you next week where we will have the results from our Reflections vote and maybe some more product updates. Enjoy the weekend and I hope this helps when you #DYOR!

Have a great investment week!

-@Abraxas_seven