Why Tyrone Ross remains optimistic amid the crypto winter

investmentnews.com:

The ongoing bitcoin bear market has been difficult for cryptocurrency entrepreneurs like Tyrone Ross, but it hasn’t been enough to slow him down.

Bitcoin is down more than 60% since it reached a high point in November 2021, and the broader cryptocurrency market has been plagued by bankruptcies, scandals, criminal investigations and increased regulatory oversight. The market has challenged Turnqey Labs, the startup Ross co-founded in 2022 after leaving Onramp Invest, the cryptocurrency-for-advisors startup he helped launch that recently sold to Securitize.

Turnqey was impacted by crypto-lending company BlockFi declaring bankruptcy. The company also held bitcoin with FTX — the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange whose founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is facing criminal charges — but was able to pull out in time, Ross said. To top things off, the company banked with Silicon Valley Bank, which collapsed in March.

But none of it has caused Ross’s personal belief in bitcoin to waver.

“It’s been incredibly difficult from a business standpoint, but personally — not too much,” said Ross, who was an InvestmentNews 40 Under 40 in 2019. “I’ve dug my feet in in terms of my conviction. I’m that confident that [bitcoin] is going to effect meaningful change.”

Nor have challenges put a dent in his confidence that Turnqey can be for crypto what is Plaid for banking assets, aggregating data on digital assets and make the information readily accessible inside financial advisors’ other tools. The team has been quietly building since launching a minimum viable product in 2022 and is close to announcing significant enterprise deals with some large players in the industry, Ross said.

As a financial advisor — Ross is also the president and founder of