In 2020, Natalie Arabian bought bitcoin at $6,700 and ether at $173, then dropped out of college.Shortly after, she bought over 200 ether tokens at an average cost of $300 each.Now, she’s a full-time crypto influencer and investor, and aims to inspire more women to invest.Get the inside scoop on what traders are talking about — delivered daily to your inbox.
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Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy .For Natalie Arabian, the start of the pandemic in 2020 was the door into cryptocurrency markets, and ultimately, a path to becoming a full-time influencer in the space.
In April 2020, Arabian told Insider that she was growing nervous that the Federal Reserve would begin printing massive amounts of money to keep the economy afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As her concerns about the economy mounted, she sought alternative investments outside of traditional financial markets.Receipts provided to Insider showed that Arabian bought bitcoin at $6,700 and ether at $173, and over the next two months, she bought over 200 ether tokens for an average cost of less than $300.
With the pandemic closing the doors on her college campus and leaving her to complete her biology degree online, she decided it was no longer the route forward for her.
“The amount of money I started making [from crypto] was unlike anything that I could’ve made after college, and it got to the point where the opportunity cost of studying and being in school was just too great to ignore,” Arabian told Insider.
A screenshot of her purchase provided to Insider showing ether bought at $173 Natalie Arabian/Twitter She added that her plans to attend graduate school would have cost even more up-front money, and she made the choice to invest it in cryptocurrency instead.
During the summer of 2020, Arabian dropped out of college.Since then, she’s built up a following of nearly 60,000 across Twitter and TikTok , where she posts crypto and Web3 investing advice.
Despite being described as an influencer, she sees herself primarily as an investor.
“I didn’t intend to become an influencer in the beginning.It came from a very organic place of having fun on Twitter and meeting people with a similar interest in shaking up ‘legacy finance,'” Arabian said.
‘Sit on ether and nothing else’ Although she had snapped up bitcoin at a low price, the world’s largest cryptocurrency no longer fits into her investment approach, Arabian noted.
In learning more about the ethereum technology and its ecosystem, Arabian said she began shedding positions in all tokens except ether.
“The more I found out about ethereum’s smart-contract capabilities, I eventually stopped investing in bitcoin and solely focused on ether,” she said.”I got very lucky early on investing in some other tokens, but I’m a big advocate for just sticking with ethereum since most people get burned on other tokens,” she said.
The smart-contract technology ethereum offers is unmatched in her view, and she’s encouraged by the fact that the token is on track to become a deflationary asset thanks to a certain amount of the tokens being taken out of circulation.
Currently, ethereum is undergoing a transition from a proof-of-work to proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.The change is meant to reduce the network’s energy usage, increase efficiency, and make it cheaper to use.
Ether is a strong bet for investors because it operates as part of one of the most well-established blockchains in existence, Arabian added.
“It has a first-mover advantage in the crypto space — it was early, and has had time to establish its technology and product.”
Moving forward, Arabian intends to advocate for more women to enter the crypto space, and shift the perception of finance as a male-dominated arena.
Specifically, she wants to inspire change through longer, educational video content on YouTube .
Her investment philosophy, however, won’t be changing anytime soon.
“The most money I’ve made by far is just from sitting on my ether and not doing anything else.That’s my biggest advice.
Just sit on ether.”
Check out: Personal Finance Insider’s picks for best cryptocurrency exchanges.