{"id":24998,"date":"2022-08-05T09:01:51","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T09:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=24998"},"modified":"2022-08-05T09:01:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T09:01:51","slug":"cryptocurrency-start-up-collective-shift-lands-smorgon-family-backing-after-hardest-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=24998","title":{"rendered":"Cryptocurrency start-up Collective Shift lands Smorgon family backing after \u2018hardest year\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"endOfArticle\">\n<p>The scam highlighted to him just how dangerous the world of cryptocurrency could be for inexperienced investors, and the need for greater education.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Smorgon said there was an opportunity for Collective Shift to become the most-trusted cryptocurrency resource in the world and potentially \u201canother Australian unicorn\u201d in a few years.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"gzJMC _1UNIi NvmVw\" data-pb-type=\"im\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"_1srKI\" data-testid=\"Image-image\" src=\"https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.124%2C$multiply_4%2C$ratio_1%2C$width_378%2C$x_57%2C$y_0\/t_crop_custom\/c_scale%2Cw_220%2Cq_88%2Cf_auto\/54fe10c7b38bf83ca09fc2b3c78789dca32ef387\" srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7, data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-id=\"54fe10c7b38bf83ca09fc2b3c78789dca32ef387\" data-pb-im-config=\"{&quot;aspectRatio&quot;:1,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;square1x1&quot;,&quot;width&quot;:382,&quot;urls&quot;:[&quot;https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.124%2C$multiply_4%2C$ratio_1%2C$width_378%2C$x_57%2C$y_0\/t_crop_custom\/c_scale%2Cw_382%2Cq_88%2Cf_auto\/54fe10c7b38bf83ca09fc2b3c78789dca32ef387&quot;,&quot; https:\/\/static.ffx.io\/images\/$zoom_0.124%2C$multiply_4%2C$ratio_1%2C$width_378%2C$x_57%2C$y_0\/t_crop_custom\/c_scale%2Cw_764%2Cq_52%2Cf_auto\/54fe10c7b38bf83ca09fc2b3c78789dca32ef387 2x&quot;]}\" width=\"382\" height=\"382\" \/><figcaption class=\"LuHig\">\n<p>Luke Smorgon is chief executive of Smorgon Capital.<!-- -->\u00a0<cite class=\"_23SOU\"> <\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He said Collective Shift chief executive and founder Ben Simpson had worked hard to rebuild credibility after the company was linked to troubled crypto-influencer Alex Saunders in July last year.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Saunders, who runs the popular Nugget\u2019s News YouTube account and cryptocurrency website, faced questions then over<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/technology\/crypto-influencer-alex-saunders-on-the-hook-for-millions-20210725-p58crx\" rel=\"noopener\"> concerns he was unable to repay significant amounts of money to investors<\/a> who had invested in a speculative cryptocurrency project he was running.<\/p>\n<p>Collective Shift launched under the same entity as Nugget\u2019s News in October 2020 but split from it in June last year after Mr Simpson sold his shares in Nugget\u2019s News and bought the remaining Collective Shift shares.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Simpson said he had not spoken to Mr Saunders in 14 months, and while he worked with Mr Saunders in an employee-employer relationship, Collective Shift had \u201cnothing\u201d to do with Mr Saunders\u2019 personal clients or projects.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement posted to Twitter in April, Mr Saunders said an opiate addiction fostered after a 2016 back injury had \u201caltered\u201d his decision-making to the extent where he was not thinking clearly. He apologised for the \u201cmess\u201d he made and said all investors with him had been repaid, or were in the process of being repaid.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Smorgon said every business faced a risk that people they worked with would not act with integrity, and he believed the problems were \u201cwell and truly behind now\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just a remnant of some early learnings of a young start-up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Collective Shift] has done a tremendous job of building a really trusted platform that is completely free of some of the past dealings that a &#8230; rogue team member had.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Simpson described the Nugget\u2019s News controversy as \u201cprobably one of the hardest periods of my life\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was really difficult because everything that came out, I had absolutely no idea about what was going on. And I had a team and a business and thousands of members I was trying to look after and it was really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said he would have \u201cthrown in the towel\u201d if he did not believe Collective Shift had an important educational role in a sector where \u201cprobably 90-95 per cent of the cryptocurrencies out there are worthless, and\/or scams\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ethos behind Collective Shift is being able to build a trusted platform where we can provide education,\u201d Mr Simpson said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got big dreams. I really see us being one of the leaders in the world for crypto education.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Saunders did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/wealth\/investing\/crypto-start-up-lands-smorgon-backing-after-hardest-year-20220805-p5b7l5\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The scam highlighted to him just how dangerous the world of cryptocurrency could be for inexperienced investors, and the need for greater education. Mr Smorgon said there was an opportunity for Collective Shift to become the most-trusted cryptocurrency resource in the world and potentially \u201canother Australian unicorn\u201d in a few years. Luke Smorgon is chief [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[36],"tags":[1719,10235,52,3903,9088,8453,3803,10236,1486,547],"class_list":["post-24998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency","tag-backing","tag-collective","tag-cryptocurrency","tag-family","tag-hardest","tag-lands","tag-shift","tag-smorgon","tag-startup","tag-year"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/bf750f9ced34d20d19aaa4a2b7373fc8aaf6a78f.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25000,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24998\/revisions\/25000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}