Losses and Lessons: The Story behind Coinfessions

Alpha (@illustratealpha) is the mastermind behind Coinfessions, a website where you can anonymously post crypto related confessions.

With over 150,000 followers on his Twitter account (@coinfessions), Alpha provides an outlet for people who want to get their secrets off their chest and share it with the world.

Alpha started as a designer in the crypto space, creating illustrations that turned good trading advice into memorable, minimal designs. He then expanded and started other projects including a weekly newsletter (@getalphamail) where he publishes  interviews with successful traders and provides analysis on the markets and the NFT space.

Coinfessions was created as a space for people to confess their struggles in the crypto world where everyone is sharing success stories. It has become a cathartic outlet for many, giving them a space to share their losses and feelings of loneliness and isolation in the crypto world.

You'll get to hear some of Alpha's favourite confessions throughout the episode, so make sure to stick around.

Join us as we explore Alpha's journey and learn how a logo competition kickstarted his Twitter account, his thoughts on different traders on Crypto Twitter, and more. Buckle up for a fascinating conversation that delves into what it means to make it and whether there will be cake.

Episode summary

🔥 Why you should care

• Alpha shared his story for the first time on the Defire Podcast
• He is mastermind behind Coinfessions | Anonymous Crypto Confessions
• He grew Coinfessions from 0 to 155k Followers in 10 months
• Shares his favorite confessions at the end

🦸‍♂️ Who is Alpha?

• Alpha started his career in digital marketing at a big marketing consultancy firm in London
• Alpha currently runs 4 projects
• Illustrate Alpha = Visualizing Trading Advice (inspired by Jack Butcher's Visualize Value)
• Alpha Trades = Weekly Trading Newsletter
• Coinfessions = Anonymous Crypto Confessions
• He is still offering consultancy & marketing work as a freelancer
• Bought his first Bitcoin in 2013 on Local Bitcoins for £300

⍺ The origins of the name Alpha

• First Alpha started Alpha illustrated in July 2021 (That's where he got his name)
• Jack Butcher's Visualize Value but for crypto trading
• He started visualizing crypto traders' advice in easy-to-understand & memorable graphics

📈 TradingView Logo Competition kickstarted Twitter growth

• At the time TradingView, a popular charting software used by most traders, changed their beloved logo
• This causes a significant backlash on Twitter. Traders were outraged about the new logo
• Therefore TradingView launched an open Logo competition on Twitter
• Alpha entered the competition and posted a logo he designed on Twitter
• The Twitter community loved his design. He went from 0 to 1500 followers within days
• Tradingview bought the logo (However, they ended up not using it)

🚀 How Alpha grew Coinfessions to 155k followers

• Started Coinfessions in April 2022
• Alpha noticed a big gap between trading best practices and how people ACTUALLY invested/traded.
• Wrote the first couple of confessions himself
• Started to grow quickly as bigger accounts picked it up, commented etc.
• Notable interaction: GCR offered a guy who confessed to pay for his medical bills
• The timing was perfect, as the bear market was starting
• Put a lot of thought and care into the design of the account (black & yellow, minimalist images)

🏋️ Getting it off the chest - Why Coinfession resonates

• It's very relatable: "I didn't want to take a $50 loss, and I ended up taking a $15,000 loss."
• People reach out to him, expressing their gratitude for taking a burden off their chest
• It's cathartic and an outlet to share something anonymously with the public
• Alpha principles to run Coinfessions with Integrity:
• Doesn't call out names of crypto influencers
• "Is this something the person would have a problem with sharing on their own account or in public?2 If yes, then it's a confession.
• Filters out confessions that could be conceived as just boasting

🐥 Tipps for Twitter Growth

💉 "All of us are on social media because we're junkies. We want the dopamine hit of getting a notification on your phone. We are all dopamine addicts. If we're all druggies, let's get each other high." (paraphrasing @Satsdart)

• Be relentlessly positive, Like every response to your tweets, etc.
• Show that you acknowledge others. Behind every like and comment is a real human
• Alpha also says that one should not underestimate the role of luck. He is not sure if he could grow his accounts again today. There were many circumstances and good timing that helped him.

🎂 The cake is a lie!

• Alpha is sure that money doesn't equal happiness (See confession nr.2 below)
• "The cake is a lie!" a reference to the popular video game Portal
• Has personally experienced wealthy families falling apart fighting over money stuff

💚 Alpha's favorite Confessions

💔 “I sold all my crypto during the May 2021 crash. Not because of panic but paying for my son's chemotherapy. It's the best decision I've ever made, even though he's gone now.”

💸 “I went from around 200 K to making 70 million. Confusingly, I feel totally lost on the purpose of life. I expected life to be perfect, but it's not. I'm more impatient, have a shorter temper, and feel like a waste of life for having money but not adding any real value to the world. Basically just won the lottery, and now I'm sitting around. It's isolating and depressing.”