12
FEATURE Crypto Weekly
How a Regular
Made it Big With Crypto B
renda Gentry invested in crypto with only a $4,000 paycheck and now makes up to $85,000 per transaction. After the market crashed in March 2020, she began investing in crypto. She began working full-time on crypto in 2021 while raising her daughters. She makes most of her money by investing in early projects and consulting on crypto and NFT projects. Brenda Gentry was a mortgage underwriter for 11 years at USAA. After quitting her traditional 9-5 job in 2020, she decided to pursue crypto investing full time. Together with her daughters Cynthia and Imani, she owns Gentry Media Productions, a crypto and NFT consulting firm that markets new crypto and NFT projects focused on gaming. Her Twitter handle is @CryptoMom. “It took me some time to transition from a traditional career into cryptocurrency.” Bitcoin was introduced to her in 2009, right when it was created, but she never considered it a serious investment. She changed her perception after the 2020 crash. She realized investing in
December 2021 | Volume 05
Ethereum and Bitcoin had nothing to lose after seeing how fast the market plunged and how it affected people's retirement accounts. The cryptocurrency hype had her curious, she said, and she wanted to see for herself what was happening. "I invested heavily in cryptocurrency last year when the market tanked," Gentry said. "It opened my eyes to the situation. Also, I thought I had to take matters into my own hands." Meanwhile, both of Gentry's daughters were members of crypto communities and decentralized autonomous organizations governed by transparent and coded rules. Gentry has also begun to participate in some of these communities, mostly via Telegram groups. Her first experience with altcoins was when she witnessed a few young investors becoming millionaires. She wasn't alone. Due to these huge gains, even those who are not professional traders became interested in cryptocurrencies because of the pandemic. Some used small sums of cash and stimulus cash to dip their toes into speculating. Many others, such as
Gentry, have pivoted their careers to take advantage of the booming interest in asset classes.
Her investment journey In addition to seeing massive gains from her investments, Gentry also invested part of her paycheck herself into certain projects. However, she continued to invest while maintaining her day job at USAA. As Gentry said, "I love comfort, and have a steady paycheck. It was very difficult for me to convince my brain, 'Alright, you can do this full-time' because after getting used to biweekly [paychecks], it's very hard to convince yourself that, okay, I'm just going to do crypto." A high amount of risk was also associated with investing in early-stage projects - and she was aware of that. In her view, transparent teams and sound fundamentals are important for projects. Gentry credited her banking background with her success. "I have never been rugged," she said, "but we do
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