Back in 2012, he also bought a building in San Francisco for $2 million using his crypto wealth, and turned it into the 20Mission co-living space for techies and artists. There are 41 bedrooms and shared bathrooms and kitchen. Kenna is considering buying a 144,000-square-foot middle school near Boston to convert that building into a similar co-living space, with 400 rooms and a tech incubator.
Kenna has been mostly out of crypto since 2016, when he said a hacker purchased a phone in his name. The hacker then changed his email passwords, took over some 60 accounts and stole millions, he said. Kenna was so stressed out, he said he had to go to a hospital, and has been on blood-pressure medication since.
“The hack took my entire life,” Kenna said. Just then, he was getting ready to relaunch a new crypto exchange, an effort that the hack derailed. Started in 2011, TradeHill closed its doors in 2012, citing a need to get money-transmitter licenses and because of difficulty of finding a bank willing to work with it, among a host of reasons, he said.
In addition to his half a Bitcoin, Kenna said hie owns a few thousand XRPs and a stash of a lesser known coin, which he invested in two years ago. He doesn’t think crypto will disappear altogether.
“Let’s say it’s 90% speculation,” he said. “Well, casinos are 100% speculation and they are still around.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.