BlockFi is a crypto trading and financial services platform designed to be the bridge from traditional finance to the ­crypto economy. From the start, the company's strategy has been to demystify crypto and transform the digital currency--made possible by the explanation-resistant technology of blockchain--into something more mainstream. BlockFi wasn't trying to capture crypto moonbeams in a jar and sell them as ener­gy. Instead, the company wanted to offer products that were familiar to most consumers, such as credit cards and inter­est-bearing accounts, using crypto as the asset base.⁠ ⁠ That strategy was clearly working. BlockFi's revenue neared $500 million in 2021, primarily from lending and trading, a 25X increase from the prior year, which was itself a 20X rocket. Like others in this arena, BlockFi's growth was hitched to the price of Bitcoin and other crypto coins. ⁠ ⁠ Crypto winters have occurred regularly and been followed by ever bigger booms. The industry expected the same thing to happen this year. But the crypto winter of 2022 has proved far, far worse than anyone's worst dreams. Crypto's market cap dropped from a peak of $2.9 trillion in 2021 to just below $1 trillion in June 2022. ⁠ ⁠ Most #Inc5000 startups hit speed bumps--cash gets short, a product flops, debt rises along with sleeplessness. Few ever confront the sudden reversal that BlockFi did. It was the fastest-growing private company until crypto winter struck. Now its old-fashioned gloss on fintech is setting it apart. Link in bio. (Reporting by Bill Saporito / Illustration: @bylincoln)