Ep 96: Being Mr Stingy | Aaron Tang (Blogger & Country Manager of Malaysia's First Regulated Crypto Exchange)

Aaron Tang is a popular Malaysian blogger known as Mr Stingy (on personal finance & career), and the Country Manager of Luno - Malaysia’s first regulated cryptocurrency exchange.In many ways, Aaron’s career has been dictated by his “maximizer personality” & desire to make the greatest use of the resources he had. This has resulted in some pretty ingenious moves, including a use of multiple credit card schemes to pay off his RM58k student debt at the start of his career!In this episode, we explore Aaron’s journey from a high flying oil & gas career to the world of social entrepreneurship (he took a 50% pay cut!), why he started the Mr Stingy blog and how that landed him a job in the crypto world as the current Country Manager of Luno. And of course, all things crypto/NFTs/DAOs!Highlights:3:06 Maximiser personality6:51 Being a Petronas scholar & breaking his bond9:18 Paying off his remaining RM58k student debt with credit cards (p/s: not financial advice!)12:46 Making a contrarian move in his career17:15 Tendering at a bad time19:04 Taking a 50% pay cut24:21 Maximising profits v helping the greatest number of people25:20 Feedback loops25:50 Starting the Mr Stingy blog34:46 How Aaron started writing for the Huffington Post35:46 How blogging got Aaron a job in the crypto space36:54 Discovering bitcoin38:05 Putting skin in the game41:47 HODL & toxic positivity42:43 Going through a baptism of fire as Employee #143:44 Becoming the Country Manager of Luno 45:06 Being a regulated digital asset exchange47:35 What regulators are most concerned about48:55 El Salvador49:42 Anti-money laundering concerns53:50 Algorithmic stablecoins54:35 Why Luna crashed58:31 Are play-to-earn games all about insider trading?1:00:14 Eating humble pie1:01:44 Big idea that Aaron has changed his mind on1:05:34 Underdogs1:06:48 DAOs📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/96 🙊 Like STIMY? Buy us a ☕️?: https://beacons.ai/sothisismywhy 💌  Weekly Newsletter on upcoming STIMY guests/interesting reads to make you smarter: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605