Alex Pruden: Chief Strategy Officer, Aleo

The Old Grad Story: 

Alex served as an Infantry and Special Forces Officer before beginning his foray into crypto in 2017, as a Blockchain Research Analyst at GGV Capital. After his first year at Stanford GSB, he furthered his development through an internship at Coinbase. Through a connection from his cryptography professor, Alex entered A16Z as a Deal Partner, a role which he held for almost two years. Leveraging his experiences and desire to trend into operations, Alex recently moved on to his current role, Chief Strategy Officer, at Aleo, a privacy-focused blockchain startup.

Old Grad Knowledge:

If you’re interested in a career in crypto, but unsure of the security: in my mind, there’s no going back – you’re not putting this genie [crypto] back in the bottle. There’s enough adoption, interest and proven use cases, and I’ve never felt better about career prospects in this industry. It’s all about getting started, finding your skills and interests, and building your network as you apply them. A lot of companies are hiring as fast as they can to keep up with demand!

It’s important to approach everyone you meet with respect, and to follow your own North Star; as a mentor once told me, “respect is a two-way street, and be true to yourself.”

Insights on Cryptocurrency Macrotrends in a Post-pandemic Market

·         Crypto is in a unique moment – pandemic stimulus packages are raising concerns on inflation within conventional currencies, and increasing interest in crypto as a hedge.

·         The legitimacy of crypto has been boosted by nearly limitless demand from institutional investors, in stark contrast to the 2017 demand, which was predominately from retail.

·         Individual currencies are protocols are differentiating; consequently, pricing trends have decoupled to a much greater extent, reflecting deeper market insight on each currency.

·         “Quantitative Easing,” following the 2008-09 crisis, seems like a Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound. Governments around the world manipulated the cost of capital, and in the process, “broke” their sovereign currencies.

o   Crypto solves this issue, by disincentivizing manipulation and debasement of capital costs.

·         Central bank digital currencies wouldn’t solve the issue of a fixed number of monetary units, since debasement isn’t an issue with the sovereign currencies themselves, it’s an issue of fiscal spending and the centralized protocols that central banks follow.

·         Central bank digital currencies stand on the other side of the conceptual spectrum from “true” crypto – they almost eliminate financial privacy, where “true” crypto preserves it.

·         For interconnection between the various blockchains – the theoretical Gen-3 technology – the winner remains to be determined.