So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests.
My name is Martin Fiedler and I’m the founder of FINANZSACHE, a learning platform for beginners and intermediates which covers financial topics from personal finance to investing.
I grew up in relatively poor economic conditions. Besides our fixed costs there wasn’t much we could afford to buy. The upside of this was, that I learned fast how to make my own money.
In my early twenties, I started to invest a part of my income into the stock market. Although I lost all my money first, it motivated me to learn more about investing. The Wall Street and the financial markets had always been something fascinating for me. At some point I got into entrepreneurship. Today, I teach what I’ve learned and still learning.
What makes financial markets so fascinating to you?
I remember when I first saw pictures or videos of traders running around on the trading floor of a stock exchange, I was like “What the heck is going on there?”. I wanted to find out. I wanted to learn how money works, what the markets move, what successful traders do differently and what a good investing strategy looks like. I think I like the hunt for inefficiencies and undiscovered patterns in the market, which is really fun for me.
Do you have any role models when it comes to investing? Anyone who inspired you in particular?
The typical stars of the scene like Warren Buffett, Charles Munger, Benjamin Graham or Jordan Belfort never interested me much. I never understood the hype about those people. I personally always liked the underdogs, who made something different than the rest. Jim Simons would be such a name, for example. These people are the real heroes for me, which, by the way, also reflects in the performance of their portfolios.
Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about?
It was about the upcoming regulation of the crypto space and made it to the Hackernoon featured top-stories!
“Upcoming” may be a bit misleading, though. In most countries, there are already some regulations in place. But in general, cryptocurrencies and related topics like DeFi or NFTs are somehow in a legal void. Is Bitcoin a security like stocks? Is it an asset like Gold? And what about Ethereum? Should Proof-of-Work-coins get treated differently than Proof-of-Stake-coins? At the time of writing, those questions are not really answered. All of this is subject to upcoming regulations in the USA and the European Union.
The general approach of the crypto-community is: “We don’t want and we don’t need any regulation. Leave us alone!”. I totally understand this from an emotional standpoint, but rationally speaking, regulation in this space is inevitable. It doesn’t mean I want it nor do I support it. It just means that it’s coming. Whether we like it or not. So in my article, I was trying to give another perspective on the whole thing and I tried to show, that in the end, it could even help the adoption.
Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about?
Although FINANZSACHE covers all financial topics, crypto and investing, in general, take a big part of it.
What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career?
I’m working in a very fast-paced industry. Therefore, I don’t plan too much ahead. I primarily want to get better at what I’m doing now. Currently, I’m digging deeper into quantitative investment strategies and algorithmic trading. Extremely fascinating field. Let’s see, what this leads to!
Another thing I’m currently working on is a charity-project called “financeXanimals”. The goal with this is to unify the financial industry to help animals in need on a regular basis.
Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it?
I love playing Basketball!
What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next?
Anything, that interests me at the time. Something finance-related, for sure. Probably something about algorithmic trading. Let’s see!
Thanks for taking the time to join our “Meet the writer” series. It was a pleasure. Do you have any closing words?
Thanks for the invite!
One thing I learned is, that you can’t really THINK yourself into what you wanna do in life. You have to TRY things out. Try everything, that comes into your mind. The more you try, the more chances you’ll find something where you think “Oh, that’s cool! I wanna dig deeper here!”. Simultaneously, you increase the chance to find something that challenges and fulfills you at the same time.