Friends With Benefits 😉 Charlie Shrem joins The Friend Platform as an Advisor

When looking at rising blockchain projects I like perusing their white paper, infiltrating their telegram community (you can tell a lot about a project by the intelligence, or lack thereof, of their loyal followers) and then the actual website (is it a slick looking operation or is it an absolute car crash?).

Exhibit A: Who decided that boring wall of grey was a great idea? I bet his name was something like Keith, and I bet he just loves the colour beige, unseasoned chicken and BBC Four*.

(*Non-brits might not get this reference but don’t fret it was only a 2/10 joke so I wouldn’t worry)

(Also, If your name is Keith and you found offence to my previous joke, I apologize profusely)

All those things considered, the thing you can really judge a project on is its core team and advisors.

As with any squad (sports, business or otherwise) sometimes the underdog can surprise you, rookies on debut can hit the ground running and never look back. But more often than not the team that looks good on paper will win.

And do you know who looks great on paper?

Charlie Shrem

I can confirm Charlie Shrem does look great on paper

So who is Charlie Shrem?

Charlie Shrem is an awesome chap who has heaps of experience with Blockchain technology and Cryptocurrency. To quote the man’s Medium page he was into it before it was cool circa 2011.

And another thing, the man has a wikipedia page #internetgoals

He’s been about the block and has the backstory to prove it. Something that I think speaks volumes about the man is that In 2015 Shrem surrendered to Federal Prison after being found guilty of selling Bitcoin to the wrong people. He’s since gone on to found Crypto.IQ which teaches people about cryptocurrency, helping them traverse the legalise and regulations to help keep involved everyone in this crazy space knowledged up, and on the straight and narrow.

[I’d highly recommend reading his Medium series called “A Geek in Prison”, huge insight, emotion, and is superbly written. I’ve read each article in the series and it’s just great]

Why is this a positive move for Friend?

I believe Friend will have a pretty good idea about what Shrem will bring to the table but for me it’s going to be that ability to build a community and cultivate a following for the tech.

His time deep in the Bitcoin community from the early stage has given Shrem years of experience of being on the front line, building rapport with people, creating a cult(ure) behind something that on paper could sound rather dry to the normal human being.

(i.e. I wouldn’t try flirting with a member of the opposite sex by bringing up how much you are excited by decentralized cloud operating systems, unless it’s at a blockchain conference ofc)

So building that hard-core community is something that Charlie will have a solid amount of experience with.

“All Hail Charlie Shrem and our new robot overlords”

We’re big fans of the Friend Network and Chazza S (I reckon that nickname will stick) so we’re are really looking forward to seeing how this relationship develops!