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 personality 6:51 Being a Petronas scholar & breaking his bond 9:18 Paying off his remaining RM58k student debt with credit cards (p/s: not financial advice!) 12:46 Making a contrarian move in his career 17:15 Tendering at a bad time 19:04 Taking a 50% pay cut 24:21 Maximising profits v helping the greatest number of people 25:20 Feedback loops 25:50 Starting the Mr Stingy blog 34:46 How Aaron started writing for the Huffington Post 35:46 How blogging got Aaron a job in the crypto space 36:54 Discovering bitcoin 38:05 Putting skin in the game 41:47 HODL & toxic positivity 42:43 Going through a baptism of fire as Employee #1 43:44 Becoming the Country Manager of Luno 45:06 Being a regulated digital asset exchange 47:35 What regulators are most concerned about 48:55 El Salvador 49:42 Anti-money laundering concerns 53:50 Algorithmic stablecoins 54:35 Why Luna crashed 58:31 Are play-to-earn games all about insider trading? 1:00:14 Eating humble pie 1:01:44 Big idea that Aaron has changed his mind on 1:05:34 Underdogs 1:06:48 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