From a Math PhD Drop-Off to McKinsey & Company — and Now a Seasoned Web3 🚀
We’re beyond excited to welcome Tung Hoang, our new Head of Marketing & Growth at Cede Labs. Here is a quick chat with him ✨
Q: What made you drop off from your PhD program?
A: In Math, I fell in love with the beauty of equations and formulas. But I was always curious about how the real world operates with imperfect data, complex human interactions, and real-time impact, so I stepped out of the classroom to explore it.
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Q: You had quite a journey before Web3. What drew you to this industry?
A: I first invested in crypto out of curiosity to see if those “life-changing opportunity” stories were true (laugh). Then I started reading books like Inventing Bitcoin and The Bitcoin Standard, and took blockchain courses on Coursera. What drew me in was how blockchain’s decentralized design can solve real-world inefficiencies by aligning incentives instead of control. That’s when I knew I wanted to build in this space.
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Q: What lessons from your past experiences have shaped how you build in Web3?
A: I have two:
From AB InBev, I learned that integrity as a core value can shape a company’s destiny. It’s how a small beer company in Brazil became the world’s largest in 3 decades. Since then, I’ve chosen to work only with people who value integrity: being transparent with users, taking ownership of mistakes, and always prioritizing long-term trust over short-term gains.
From McKinsey, I learned to break big problems into smaller, solvable parts. That mindset helps me learn fast and execute fast in Web3, from restructuring teams, organizing the first-ever liquidity competition, and launching new products to even running marketing through a meme token.
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Q: You helped scale Krystal to half a billion in liquidity volume and reached breakeven within a year. What was one key lesson from that journey?
A: One that stayed with me is that integrity and sincerity build loyalty stronger than incentives ever can. During one of our liquidity competitions, a partner was hacked. We reached out to every participant, supported impacted users with our own funds, and checked in long after. Two years later, some of those users are still active in Krystal’s community: onboarding new users, sharing feedback, and spreading the word. That experience proved that genuine care compounds faster than any short-term reward.
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Q: What is your ambition for Cede Hub?
A: I want to establish Cede Hub as the go-to brand for trading and holding competitions across all markets, the same way people think of Magnus Carlsen for chess, Eminem for rap, or Binance for centralized exchanges.
✨ Thank you, Tung, for the inspiring chat!
We’ll continue sharing more #FounderChats like this - stories, lessons, and insights from our journey at Cede Hub. If you’re curious about what we’re building, hit Follow & drop a comment below 👇
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