Mitchell DiRaimondo Podcast Transcript
Mitchell DiRaimondo joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Mitchell DiRaimondo. Mitchell DiRaimondo is an American businessman, cross industry entrepreneur, and digital industrialist, having founded enterprises across the decentralized finance and investment arenas.
He currently serves as lead project manager SteelWave Digital, and as the CEO of e-Cobalt investing and of Teich Digital Ventures, while remaining versatile to investments in like-minded mission driven and 2023 era companies, Mitchell began his endeavors researching and leveraging cryptocurrency market boons in asset class format in 2014 while still in high school.
His pragmatic focus then on creating trading strategies that capitalize on the inefficiencies of the traditional marketplace led to his founding companies pioneering approaches, which shared a commonality of creating an outsized positive return of alpha. The majority, which were established while Mitch was attending Elon university in 2017.
Well, good afternoon, Mitch. Welcome to the show!
Mitchell DiRaimondo: Thank you so much for having me excited to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I appreciate you making the time. I know a lot of, a lot of times, as you know, calendars get a little bit crazy, but we make it work every time I’ve been to 50 countries doing this. So, I know how that can be sometimes.
So just again, so honored to have you here. And Mitch, jumping right into the questions here, let’s talk a little bit about cryptocurrency. You started researching and leveraging crypto markets back in 2014 while still in high school, which is admirable, by the way, can you share what initially drew you to cryptocurrencies and how you navigated the complexities of these markets at such a young age?
Mitchell DiRaimondo: Yeah, I mean, I grew up kind of in the epicenter of it. You know, growing up in the Silicon Valley, it’s kind of where it was talked about. Everyone was familiar with it in high school. And when I was first introduced to it, you know, I was playing golf pretty competitively and I was like, you know, I want to go be a pro golfer.
That’s my whole thing. And then I learned what Bitcoin was and I took a step back and I’m like, look, You know, this is an investable asset class. It’s still very early, very young, but as it develops, I think this will be the future. So, I completely turned and dive straight into the crypto rabbit hole, as we call it.
But really the thesis back then was. You have to control the risk, right? The risk was massive. The volatility was huge. It was too early to pick your winners and losers, but we set out to trade at all. We’re like, look, if we can use AI to scrub data and come out with an output for us, we then can use AI to trade for us.
And it was basically a quantitative trading group. And its infancy that grew up. We ended up going to college. I found my coding team in college. You know, we went through 3 market cycles from 2014 to 2020 when we graduated. So, we saw it all. We really had a front row seat for the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, we traded through everything in it.
And you learn a lot. You see what works, what doesn’t, why it doesn’t work. And you learn and I think we’re kind of at a crossroads now in this market where I’m very excited to be. You know, kind of leading this next push. So, yeah, I mean, that was my back story kind of what got me into it. You know, obviously when I was in college, people weren’t too familiar with it.
And, you know, a lot of the administration and business school and everything looked down on it where now it’s become kind of a normalcy thing. So, we’re really excited to see that growth curve and be a part of it.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And thank you for sharing the backstory there. That helps a lot and helps us understand who you are and where you started and where you’re at now.
That’s, that’s just awesome. So, thank you. And Mitch, as the founder of SteelWave Digital, what unique challenges does the company address within the digital finance space and what sets your approach apart from others in the industry?
Mitchell DiRaimondo: Yeah, I mean, so I graduated and We’re still running the hedge fund. And we still are, but at the time I was like, look, I see where there’s a big gap.
There’s a gap in real scalable institutional grade assets. There wasn’t stuff that, you know, black rock KKR or international sovereign wealth could scale assets into. So I stepped back and I went to my father who runs steel wave. The parent company, and I was like, look, if we can really take your real estate to this market and show the market that.
We have a very unique, scalable, private investment. I think we could really be the front edge of real-world assets into the digital realm. And he bit, he was like, all right, let’s do it. Let’s go. Let’s set out for it. And this was, you know, 2020. So, I’d say that’s three years really after the whole concept of tokenization came out.
So, it was still young, it was early. So, for SteelWave. The smallest deal is 100Million. Their biggest goes upwards of 2 or 2. 5Billion dollars. So that’s that’s hard to raise in a new market. And we found that out. We’re like, look, you know, everyone’s really early. Everyone’s young. No, 1’s really bridging in scalable institutional assets.
So, we step back and we’re like, look, you know, if we can. Launch something that people can wrap their head around, which, you know, everyone knows what a real estate fund is. It’s plain and simple and the market can understand that we could really lead the push. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do.
You know, we’re, we’re launching something that we have. Access to that no one else has, which is the steel wave real estate pipeline. They’ve been doing it for 40 years. They create the real estate people really want to be in and we’re excited to bring that to a new market with new investors and new minds, new tech, new everything.
Brian Thomas: It’s very exciting. Thank you and I know that’s a tough space, obviously, to get people to invest and I’ve been down that road platform is built on blockchain, by the way, and, you know, trying to get people to get excited in something that again, technology has been around for 12 plus years, but people are still skeptical to jump into something that’s new and.
And they’re not sure that, you know, they’re going to get some sort of return on investment. So, I totally get that. But I appreciate you unpacking all that for us today. And Mitch, my next question for you here is decentralized finances, rapidly evolving field, as you know, based on your extensive experience, where do you most see a significant potential for innovation and growth within the DeFi space?
Mitchell DiRaimondo: I mean, it gets back to the whole concept of real world assets. You know, I, I think this whole space is starving for product that’s backed by real capital, real cash flows. You know, you can run a due diligence package on people are comfortable investing in it because they can understand the risk. And, you know, real estate’s the 1 that people can wrap their head around easily, but this can span everything.
You know, this could be. Bringing life insurance policies on chain, this could be an art fund. This can be really whatever it has a stable cash flow with a real world backing behind it. Now, I like real estate because I, like, you know, seeing stuff grow, changing the way cities, you know, look, I think that’s something that’s unique and artistic.
But yeah, I think, look, anyone that’s coming into the space is starting to see that and what’s funny is 18 months ago, 24 months ago, when we were pitching this, we were almost laughed off the stage because people are like, oh, who wants a 10 percent cash flow? We’re looking for the 200. 1000 percent return and then the bear market hit, and now people are coming and going, wow, that actually sounds like a pretty good investment idea.
And we knew it was coming, so we’re really trying to be on the front edge of it. And. You know, I think this next bull market is really going to be backed by real world assets, but also the projects that allow that to happen. Right? You’re going to start to see the ones that make these rails. Easier, cheaper come to the top.
And I think that’s what you’re going to start to see over the next 18 months. For sure.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate you sharing. That, and as you know, the, we’re starting to get a little bit of traction in the DeFi space now, as you know, and, you know, the Bitcoin ETF has got a lot of hype around that. And I think, I hope in the next couple of years that, you know, blockchain, crypto, DeFi, all that’s really part of our vocabulary.
It’s part of, it’s part of the mainstream. I really do. So, I appreciate your perspectives. And Mitch, last question of the day for young entrepreneurs and investors looking to make their mark in the digital finance space. What advice do you offer based on your own experiences and successes?
Mitchell DiRaimondo: I mean, at the end of the day, my biggest advice I tell people is don’t follow the hype, follow the team.
You know, you want to look at who’s running your project. You want to understand how they’re looking at it, why they’re looking at it the way and feel comfortable with that team as opposed to. Following the whole hype cycle around crypto, you know, I’ve watched it go through countless projects. It’s a great idea.
This that and then, you know, next thing, you know, it’s worth 0 and I’ve also seen projects where people, you know, cast a bunch of doubt, but, you know, the team is going to be something that’s pivotal come to the top. You know, I, I think a good example of this is Solana, you know, with what happened with FTX and their capital stack kind of getting ripped out from under him.
And that team. Is very good, you know, I, I really think they’re on to the next level and they’re a good example of that. So if you can copy that and see the rise and follow that path, I think you’re going in the right direction.
Brian Thomas: Thank you, and I appreciate you kind of highlighting. Don’t follow that hype.
We’ve, we’ve, we’ve all seen it in the last several years. Things come and go. Oh, yeah, really do appreciate your perspective because you’re, you’re in this every day. And our audience appreciates that. So, thank you so much. You’re very, very welcome. It was such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Mitchell DiRaimondo: Definitely have a good 1 and looking forward to chat in the future.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Mitchell DiRaimondo Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
