“It seems worthwhile to go self-custody only for a while -- or maybe just forever.”
Cobie is a British cryptocurrency investor, trader and one of the most popular influencers in the space, with nearly 800,000 followers on Twitter. He was previously known as Crypto Cobain, a pseudonym likely inspired by his physical resemblance with American grunge icon and Nirvana lead Kurt Cobain. His real name is Jordan Fish, and he went to Bristol University, where he studied computer science until 2013.
He discovered Bitcoin early in 2013 and launched Maxcoin — a soft fork of Bitcoin Core — with Luke Mitchell the following year. Maxcoin was a cryptocurrency based on the celebrity Max Keiser, who supported the coin until it lost relevance at the end of 2014.
His interest in technology and payment systems brought him to build a career as head of technology for the social media and digital marketing company CYOA. He then became head of growth of San Francisco-based tech company Enki until he joined international payment provider Monzo in 2017 in senior roles, mainly growing and upgrading the company’s client base.
While at Monzo, he stated that Bitcoin has the potential to be a more transparent, deceit-free monetary system that could help make money and finance fairer, just like the company he was working for.
Over the years, he built a reputation as a generous influencer who helps individuals facing difficulties and startups grow. Since 2021, Cobie has co-hosted the crypto-focused podcast UpOnly with Brian Krogsgard — known as Ledger on Twitter — and he’s also a writer on Substack.
In 2021, Cobie helped build and grow Lido, a liquid staking solution for Ethereum, which recently surpassed MakerDAO to become the leading DeFi protocol by total value locked.
Cobie started the year with popular guests on UpOnly, including Vitalik Buterin and Michael Saylor in January. Cobie is also known for calling out scammers, and his tweets in 2022 focused on the unfortunate industry stories of the year that saw significant cryptocurrency companies collapse. Going from Terra’s LUNA collapse to the trading platform Voyager, crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, BlockFi and Celsius, he’s covered them all in detail, including the latest FTX bankruptcy.
He dedicated a series of episodes on UpOnly and regular tweet updates to FTX, which used to be one of the show’s sponsors until the company became insolvent in November 2022. His skills as a scam detector led him to expose an inside trader at Coinbase in April, which prompted an internal investigation that involved former product manager Ishan Wahi.
The dramatic events of 2022 impacted Cobie’s trust in the industry. While supporting crypto for its innovation and potential, he constantly exposed rug pulls and called out individuals who use dubious tactics to grow their wealth while compromising people’s money.
Cobie’s popularity as a crypto influencer doesn’t seem to be fading away, and 2023 might be the year he finally reaches 1 million followers on Twitter — where he grew his fame as an investor, trader and analyst of cryptocurrency markets.
He promotes his Substack-based newsletter in his Twitter bio but hasn’t written a post since June 2022. Among his multiple activities and businesses, he could grow the newsletter’s follower base in 2023, as crypto enthusiasts are surely keen on his relaxed approach to “crypto, money, markets, life, and whatever,” as he mentions on the homepage.
UpOnly also seems to be releasing new episodes randomly rather than every Thursday as the show’s webpage states. Still, he admits to being lazy, so his general crypto community might keep following him on Twitter for all his humorous tales and semi-serious analyses of trading data.
