Cryptocurrency as a route to escape the rat race?

Buying Ether to learn to code smart contracts sparked his fascination with digital assets

- Rosalind Ang

Tech entrepreneur Hong Qi Yu's fascination with investing began when he was only 13 but that early exposure planted a seed that has continued to flourish.

"My father would always bring back a newspaper and then begin studying the graphs and numbers of the stock market,” says Mr Hong of his childhood years.

His interest in investing was nurtured by his family environment and led him to delve into stocks and foreign exchange as a member of the investors' club while studying at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Mr Hong, 34, graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical and electronic engineering (major in infocomm) at NTU in 2014 and then worked as a coder at fintech start-up Bambu.

He also bought his first batch of Ether, a cryptocurrency, to learn to code smart contracts. Although he did not buy the crypto coins for investment or trading purposes, he saw Ether's value rise nearly 100 per cent after a few months.

"This moment began my deep fascination with the cryptocurrency world," says Mr Hong, who went on to set up Tokenize Xchange in 2017.