Ep. 39: New beginnings🚀

Hey friends, <br/><br/>About a year ago, I started publishing this newsletter as a forcing mechanism to document my learning, clarify my thinking and keep up with crypto news. I decided to share in the event that someone else might find it useful. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. #wagmi! (Crypto babble for &#8220;We&#8217;re all gonna make it!&#8221;)<br/><br/>Well fam, I&#8217;ve got some exciting news to share: I did it! I took the plunge. This week will be my first working in crypto full-time. <br/><br/>New beginnings &#128640;<br/><br/>I came across a <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/at-the-intersection-of-banking-and-technology-a-conversation-with-cross-river-bank">conversation</a> between a McKinsey senior partner and executives at Cross River, a technology-forward bank. I was instantly struck by Gilles Gades&#8217; (CEO) and Adam Goller&#8217;s (Head of FinTech banking) energy, innovation, and openness to crypto. So I reached out to the team. This led to a series of inspiring conversations and an offer to join the <a href="https://crossriver.com/crypto-at-cross-river">new crypto team</a>! <br/><br/>Cross River is not your typical bank. It is backed by esteemed investors like KKR, Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, and Ribbit Capital. It provides banking-as-a-service to FinTechs like Stripe, Coinbase, and Affirm. For example, they power payments when you purchase a Peloton and pay for it in installments. Cross River also banks a number of crypto companies. <br/><br/>Many large and small businesses were hurt in the pandemic. Cross River leveraged technology to become <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/business/paycheck-protection-program-cross-river-bank.html">the 4th largest processor</a> of the Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans. In so doing, the 13 year old bank with ~600 employees outdid much larger rivals like Wells Fargo. <br/><br/>Now, the company is building a suite of offerings to enable FinTechs and other companies provide cr