Making NFT Collections in College

CG Pantheon brings the thousand most innovative individuals in finance, web3, and fintech together.

Lindsay Rosenthal is the founder of EdLabs , a curated community of thought leaders in web3, finance and fintech, and the Undressing Finance podcast. As a young leader in the space, Lindsay is passionate about bringing innovative minds together to increase collaboration and development in web3 and financial spaces from a fresh point of view.

Eve #wealthwednesday Highlight 55: Lindsay Rosenthal, Founder of CG Pantheon

Can you share a bit about yourself?

In crypto and blockchain, age is just a number. You could be old or young and there will always be an exciting competitive advantage you can bring to the space. I'm from Seattle and almost finished with school, where I’m studying finance and economics. My interest in traditional finance and blockchain has grown after years of ‘passion’ learning and research as well as various exciting roles like currently being the first female president at our school’s investment fund where I lead 20 analysts and manage a portfolio of over $700,000, podcast host and web3 enthusiast. I find joy in bringing a fresh perspective into an emerging space to partner with others to propel the adoption farther and faster.

What was your first investment?

I've always been interested in investing since I was young. I remember very distinctly, having this little pamphlet from our bank and being obsessed with CDs. I was around eight or nine years old at the time and was trying to pitch a deal to my parents. I wanted to borrow five grand to invest, get returns, and then give back the amount I borrowed from her. Obviously, they didn't let that happen. CD rates weren’t great either but that was the first investment I wanted to make.

Later, when I was a bit older, my dad and I bought a bit of Snapchat stock together during its IPO so I could begin to learn more about the ins and outs of stock trading through conversations and experience. However, shortly after we bought it, it tanked, and we would follow the price as it fell lower and lower. That was an interesting first investment! I learnt what could go wrong and that things don’t always go up. This was education you can only truly understand through hands-on experience.

So you can see, the world of investing and wealth creation has always been something I really enjoyed. Of course, I had a lot of encouragement from my parents but I don’t know why it stuck so much personally. When I finally could invest myself - I did what a great investor should - started with an ETF that tracked the S&P 500. That was the first actual investment and a great starting spot.

How/why did you get into your space??

Curiosity and learning about finance seemed to run in my family. I would, and still, spend hours of time reading and watching articles, books, podcasts, videos, reports, and whatever else I could get my hands on to understand more. This has led me to my current studies in school of finance and economics and my ‘extracurricular’ passions of learning and investing into crypto and blockchain.

I am passionate about traditional finance as well as blockchain. That's what we're going to talk about today. It’s also why I started my Undressing Finance podcast where we talk more about finance and crypto. Plus all the projects we've been working on CG Pantheon. I'm also the first female president of my student investment fund at my University. I lead some of the students with managing money which has been really exciting.

What role do you play in the wealth space and why is it important?

I've always been someone who’ll read/learn something interesting and get excited and want to tell people about it and collaborate on thoughts and ideas. This has only heightened as I get my mind blown away by blockchain capabilities every day. I think this has originated with growing up in the digital age and being able to communicate with others all around the world, at any moment. Additionally, I’ve hosted IRL investing nights with friends. This truly gave me the idea to spearhead my podcast, to be able to converse and pick the minds of the top professionals in the space and spread the alpha out to my community.

I was so impressed by the leaders I was speaking to and wanted to bring them together in some way. I was already active in the NFT space and thought it would be great to use NFT technology to do so. The NFT collection, CG Pantheon, brings the thousand most innovative individuals in finance, web3, and fintech together. We made one of one portrait art for each person in our Genesis collection which was two hundred Goddesses and Gods.

With being a female in the space and in pioneering roles like the first female president in the investment fund, I've always been passionate about bringing women into the conversion so that they can have the freedom to succeed and amplify their voices. That's why we were passionate to do the genesis collection with a hundred men and hundred women so the magic of diverse collaboration could happen.

I want to teach others about web3 and investing and have this whole collaborative experience.

What do you believe is the most exciting thing you’ve learned and want others to know?

With crypto and all these volatile emerging assets, make sure that you're not putting all your wealth and life savings in one spot. We've seen these crazy hacks lately and with the ability to throw life savings out the window and that can be pretty detrimental. Make sure that you're diversifying your assets but also enjoying and learning along the way (and realizing that the best things in life take patience). Investing (time, attention, money…) and talking with other builders is where you learn. If you're ready for the rollercoaster, jump in the space and start learning, rollercoasters are fun. Learn the way that feels right for you.?

Lastly, the beauty of web3 will come once the tech is truly invisible, which is still a while away so there is plenty of time to build something in the space that you have expertise in.?

Is there a person or a company that’s really inspired you?

One person I want to highlight is Tara Annison, she's with Elliptic. She is technical, brilliant, and has an amazing ability to communicate these high-level topics to people who aren't as technical.

There's a podcast called Overpriced JPEGS by Carly Reilly. She is someone I've always listened to and keeps me up to date on what's happening in the NFT space. I love her point of view, it's very real and down to earth.

I've always enjoyed reading some of the reports by Andreesen Horowitz. They come out with cool reports about macro of what going on in web3. It's interesting to see how things are going and growing.

These three people are someone I look for resources in this space.

What advice would you give to someone getting started?

Open a crypto wallet and figure out how to get money into it even if it's a little bit. It helps to go on from there and be able to read more about it and talk to people. Being hands-on and figuring out how to do it.

Everyone's new to the space right now, no one really knows everything. Even if they seem like they know everything, everyone's still learning.

Keep an open mind. If you don't know what's going on, I'm sure the next person doesn't know a lot as well. Even though there's crazy jargon and words that people use, don't let that discourage you.

How can we stay in touch?

You can follow me on my LinkedIn at Lindsay Rosenthal. My podcast is Undressing Finance and the NFT collection/community is CG Pantheon. The CG comes from Crypto God & Goddesses. CG Pantheon is on Twitter and LinkedIn. Undressing Finance is on LinkedIn and Spotify. Welcome to follow me on those stuff. We’re always putting out content for people in space and amazing community, if you want to be part of it, feel free to come join.