Josh Richards Provides WonderFi Star Influencer Power Among ‘GenZ’ Investors
Much to the delight of pre-public investors, WonderFi Technologies (NEO:WNDR) experienced a strong debut on its first day of trading on the NEO Exchange on Tuesday (+69.52% above the last pre-public financing round at C$1.05/share). Aside from being one of the few pure-play DeFi companies on the public exchanges, the company is backed by a dominant advantage few competitors can match: major social influencer backing. TDR put this advantage on full display by interviewing the public face of WonderFi for the ‘GenZ’ demographic—mega social media star Josh Richards.
Josh Richards is a prominent social media celebrity and actor from Canada, and one of the most visible among “Generation Z”—the demographic cohort succeeding Millennials born between born between 1997 and 2012. For a variety of reasons—stemming from lessons gleaned from the Great Financial Crisis, increasing economic instability and soaring wealth inequality—GenZ tends to sport entrenched characteristics that define its generation. GenZ tends to be extremely financially focused, particularly entrepreneurial, technologically savvy and hyper-competitive.
Josh Richards flashed some of these attributes in our recent interview—especially on the topic of financial literacy. While his massive social media following is nice, there appears to be a genuine undercurrent of purpose behind his active investment in WonderFi and evangelism of DeFi in general:
Shadd Dales: Josh, what gets you passionate, I guess, about this opportunity?
Josh Richards: …When I was going through school—and going through high school—I was never educated on what to do with money if I made money. There wasn’t any financial literacy. And a big part of my mission statement is really providing that other path for kids, and I think financial literacy is just something that is so important for GenZ to learn. And I think we have their interest gauged. I think the young people of today want to learn—they know a lot about crypto in the sense that they’re hearing it everyday. Right, they might not exactly know how to go and invest it, but, they’re interested. So, I think it’s just such a unique opportunity that we have right now to really educate—educate these young people.
Josh Richard is best known for his large followership on TikTok, where he has 25.5 million followers. Across all platform, he purportedly has over 32 million followers. Josh is the Chief Strategy Officer and an investor of Triller, an American video producing and social networking service.
From a visibility point of view, Josh Richards provides WonderFi with a social media presence few other companies can match—least of which in the small cap sector. With Josh tweeting the night prior to WonderFi’s listing debut and taking part in opening bell ceremonies, chances are high he will continue to provide strategic messaging for the company.
Click on the embedded link for our interview with WonderFi Technologies strategic investor Josh Richards and CEO Ben Samaroo, in their own words.
