Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, told Forbes in a recent interview that he gained $50 million from early bets on ether and Coinbase shares after purchasing 50,000 ether for $15,000.
The Reddit founder’s investment of 30 cents per ether token was rather high. The native cryptocurrency of the ethereum platform, ether, is now trading at over $1,600, making it the second most expensive asset behind bitcoin.
Ohanian’s holdings in ether would be worth around $80 million today, up from his first investment of about $2 million. This is a 5,600-fold increase. He might have made almost $230 million if he cashed out when Ether was trading at above $4,600 in November 2021. “I did not put in nearly as much as I should have,” Ohanian said to Forbes.
Alexis Ohanian Purchases 50K Ether
Before Coinbase went public in 2021, Ohanian managed a venture capital firm called Initialized Capital, which made an investment in the company. When funding his current startup company, 776, he cashed out $26 million worth of shares in a cryptocurrency exchange.
The tech entrepreneur, who is married to tennis star Serena Williams, has put money into 29 different blockchain companies. In February of 2022, he was able to attract $500 million to finance similar wagers, and in August of that year, he attempted to build a $176 million cryptocurrency fund but was only able to attract $6 million as investors turned against the business.
It was a bad time on my part,” Alexis Ohanian said. Ohanian has told Forbes that he has at least 700 tokens that cannot be exchanged for cash (NFTs). They get access to a startup’s metaverse early on, as well as ownership in a Web3 domain registrar and a piece of Georgian real estate.
Alexis Ohanian also spent the equivalent of almost $500,000 USD in Ether in 2021 on seven NFTs he believed resembled Williams, and gave his favorite one to her as a present.
