Charles Read, 27, is a founding partner at one of the blockchain industry’s most active Web3 funds: Rarestone Capital. He’s also amassed a following of over 20,000 Twitter followers who turn to him for the latest news, insight, and oftentimes humor from the industry.
Read comes from humble beginnings and used his skillset of connecting people to build one of the most influential communities in crypto. This invite-only group is not publicized and has brought together some of the biggest names in the space. For Read, this realization came after a journey filled with personal trial and error as well as deep exploration.
“I grew up pretty poor. My father left when I was young and I grew up with my mum and brother. I went to a pretty average school,” Read said in an interview, rather nonchalantly. “I always knew I’d do some cool stuff but it took me forever to figure it out – I pretty much job hopped and used my summers to travel the world until my early twenties. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to study either”
Rarestone Capital is now one of the industry’s top-performing funds, making over 25 investments in 2021. Aside from Rarestone Capital, Read is the CEO at Rarestone Labs – a portfolio project accelerator focused on token launches. In Q1 2021, Rarestone Labs booked 7 figure revenues. Outside of work, Read has a 10-month-old daughter and is a prime example of someone leveraging the power of decentralized teams and work to strike an important balance in life.
A Different Career Path
When I asked Read what the turning point was in his career he said, “I have a highly addictive personality, but I also get bored quickly. I never got bored when I discovered blockchain. Its use cases were a convergence of all my favorite areas of technology.”
This seems to be a common trend in the blockchain industry. It attracts high-performing individuals who might lack traditional credentials, but bring a deep passion and curiosity for being at the cutting-edge of an emerging industry.
Read is a writer himself and uses his platform to educate people who “have the right curiosity but might need a little nudge in the right direction”. He’s a big believer that the blockchain industry is being built by millennials and gen-z who “grew up in the internet” and have a playful curiosity for technology, however clunky and new it may be. Most of us remember dial-up and minesweeper.
What’s Next?
It is safe to assume Rarestone Capital will still be a primary focus for Read and his team. The company has recently invested alongside the likes of Mark Cuban and some of the biggest funds in the world in seed-stage projects. Beyond Rarestone, Read has some clear-cut goals around giving back where he can and helping people who might need some direction in life.
“Philanthropy – once you start to make money that can change the lives around you very easily, that should really be your focus in my opinion. I need to make sure my family is taken care of, and then I’ll look to focus my efforts on making technology more accessible for everyone. Something I am so grateful for now is that I had access to a computer from a young age, I absolutely would not be who I am without that.”
There is no doubt that Read will continue to fight for what he believes while contributing back to people who might be in similar positions as he was in the past. Rarestone is also in a position to continue playing an important part in the adoption and emergence of blockchain sub-industries like NFTs – an industry Read has been very involved in the past few years.
It will be inspirational to see what happens when all of these worlds, including philanthropy, collide.
Published May 2nd, 2021