Crypto Castle is a three-story house in San Francisco - where young people love technology to eat, sleep, party, and map out the future for money.
By 2015, Jeremy Gardner travels around the city to find a home and office for his startup - Augur - a company that provides market-based forecasting tools based on chain blocks. When he saw the three-story house in the San Francisco high-rise, just a half-hour drive from Silicon Valley, he deposited $ 20,000 to rent it. So Crypto Castle was born.
Since then, this place has become the destination of people working in virtual currency, Gardner said. Most residents and visitors come here at the age of 20. They mostly invest in Bitcoin - the most popular digital currency in the world today. By 2015, the price per dollar is only about $ 200. But now, it has raised over $ 4,100.
Half a dozen people who live with me have become virtual billionaires, "Gardner said. However, not everyone living here is working on Bitcoin. Some startup entrepreneurs moved here simply to stay.
"I do not think you can stay in this house for more than two hours without being assimilated," Gardner said. His fortune has skyrocketed since buying Bitcoin in 2013.
Vivian Ford - Director of Comma - a startup on self-driving technology, began pouring money into Bitcoin in just a week after moving in here. She called it "the best investment I ever made".
Anyone who comes here must read Distributed, a journal of virtual currency trading. It was placed at the front door.
On the fridge stickers are also stickers of startups related to virtual currency.
Even so, some hires say living with techies is tiring. Ford says that there is no concept of life-work balance.
At Crypto Castle, no one has to go far to find smart, like-minded people. Aaron Power-Bearden, a stock investor and Bitcoin, said he liked late night conversations with everyone in the living room. "We are primarily talking about finance," he said.
One person said that the last time he came here as a guest, he was hired by a tenant to make a salami sandwich. "Two weeks later, I found out he is co-founder of Oculus," he said. This is a virtual reality production company was acquired by Facebook.
Over the past few years, Gardner has shifted most of its savings and shares into Bitcoin investments. Interest rates help him cover living expenses.
"With virtual currency and chain block technology, I made more money than I expected to earn a lifetime," Gardner said.