Ian Balina

Ian Balina Speaking Topics

• $20K to $5M in Under 12 Months: How I Did It and What I Learned

  In early 2017, Ian Balina put $20,000 into crypto. Under 12 months later, it was worth over $5 million—a 250x return. Ian documented every trade publicly to an audience that eventually grew into the millions.

  Ian built a scoring system that ranked investments on factors most people ignored. He created rules that told him when to buy and when to sell. And he followed the system even when emotion told him to do the opposite.

  This talk is the full breakdown: the model, the patterns, and the discipline. Ian'll also cover what most people get wrong—why they buy late, sell early, and let emotions destroy returns that data would have protected.

  What you'll walk away with:

  • The exact scoring system Ian used to evaluate investments
  • How to build rules that remove emotion from decisions
  • Why most people fail—and how to avoid their mistakes

• I Lost $2 Million Live on Camera

  In 2018, Ian Balina was hacked for $2 million while livestreaming. He watched his portfolio drain in real time. The clip went viral. Overnight, Ian became a cautionary tale.

  What happened next defined Ian more than the money he'd made. He had to decide: disappear or rebuild in public. He chose to rebuild. Ian changed how he operated, regained trust slowly, and came out stronger than before.

  This talk is about what happens when you fail and everyone sees it. It's about making decisions when the stakes feel unbearable and your reputation is on the line. Ian doesn't tell this story because it's comfortable. He tells it because it's the most useful thing he's learned.

  What you'll walk away with:

  • How to make decisions in crisis
  • Rebuilding credibility after public failure
  • Turning your worst moment into an asset

• AI Agents Will Need Wallets: Where the Next Decade of Value Will Be Created

  Ian Balina spent four years at IBM building AI systems. Then he spent a decade investing in crypto infrastructure. Now these two worlds are converging—and most investors are underexposed to the intersection.

  AI agents are booking flights, writing code, and managing tasks autonomously. Soon they'll need to pay for things—APIs, services, each other. Agents can't open bank accounts. The solution is crypto wallets that don't require human identity.

  This talk is for investors and executives thinking about where value will be created over the next decade. Ian'll walk through the thesis, the categories worth watching, and how to evaluate opportunities in a space where traditional metrics don't apply yet.

  What you'll walk away with:

  • Why AI and crypto infrastructure are converging
  • Where early-stage value is being created today
  • How to evaluate investments when there's no revenue yet

• What Operators See That Traditional Investors Miss

  Ian Balina has sat on both sides of the table—as a founder who built a company to $18M in revenue, and as an investor who has made over 100 early-stage bets.

  Most investors evaluate startups from the outside: pitch decks, TAM slides, growth metrics. Operators evaluate differently. We see the gaps between what founders say and what's actually happening. We know which problems are fatal and which ones are noise.

  This talk is about the edge that comes from building. Ian will share the patterns he looks for that don't show up in data rooms, the questions he ask that founders don't expect, and why the best early-stage investors are often former operators.

  What you'll walk away with:

  • The diligence questions that reveal what metrics hide
  • How operating experience translates to investing edge
  • What separates fundable founders from good storytellers

• 100 Angel Investments: Process, Mistakes, and What Actually Predicts Returns

  Ian Balina has written over 100 angel checks. He's had zeros and he's had 100x returns. After a decade, Ian has learned that the difference is rarely obvious at the time—but it is predictable if you know what to look for.

  This talk is the honest breakdown: the investment process he has developed, the mistakes that cost him the most, and the patterns that have actually correlated with returns. It's not theory—it's what Ian learned writing real checks with real losses.

  For investors and allocators evaluating early-stage opportunities, this is how Ian thinks about sourcing, selection, and portfolio construction—and why discipline matters more than deal flow.

  What you'll walk away with:

  • The process behind sourcing and selecting investments
  • How Ian thinks about position sizing and portfolio construction
  • The mistakes he has made and what they taught him