Van00sa, X Hall of Flame

Vanessa Sierra went on Australian national television to find love… but that didn’t work out. A few years later, she accidentally got big on Crypto Twitter, which is almost as good. She says anyone can learn to go viral in crypto — if they follow the right steps.

Sierra thinks Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin would do well on Love Island as he is “quite a funny person.”

“I think he’d be entertaining,” Sierra tells Hall of Flame, but adds there’s little chance he’d ever join the show.

After making a name for herself on Love Island Australia in 2019 and spending 14 days in the villa, Sierra says she had “no intention of blowing up” on Crypto Twitter.

“It kind of just happened,” the 30-year-old Vanuatu-born, Australian-raised, Dubai-based crypto influencer says.

She insists she didn’t use her reality TV fame to get ahead in crypto, and she keeps the two worlds separate. “What you see on Crypto Twitter, they’re not the same that I have on Instagram, Snapchat, or anything like that,” she says, adding that she didn’t “cross-promote” to her existing fans when growing her crypto-focused X account, which now has almost 187,000 followers.

Sierra grew up in Sydney, arguably Australia’s crypto capital, and studied finance at uni, so she’s always been into money. After Love Island, her Instagram account blew up and she made a living from sponsored posts for a bit over a year, until the COVID-19 pandemic started and all the brand deals dried up.

“I lost all of my brand deals because none of the brands were making money, so I pivoted to crypto, I gained interest in the market, and coincidentally, another bull run happened,” she laughs.

She admits she’s had some lucky wins pulling profits out of crypto, but greed’s definitely gotten the best of her, too. In 2021, Sierra “round-tripped” a Doge spin-off memecoin. She put in $300, watched it surge up to $80,000 in a few weeks, thought it’d keep going up… and then it crashed. “I was stupid,” she laughs.

Sierra claims she didn’t even try to get famous in crypto, when she launched her account in April 2020. “I didn’t actually start because I wanted to grow the account; I started because I wanted to research crypto,” she says.

But her outgoing personality couldn’t resist the spotlight. “I would do like four to five hours of Spaces a day with random crypto people,” she laughs. 

Tips on making it big as a crypto influencer

Sierra believes joining X Spaces is a great way to build your following and get to know more people in the crypto industry. But keep it within your expertise. Sierra says the last thing you want is to be a jack of all trades in crypto…that won’t do much for your follower count.

“The best way someone can be successful is to be consistent with posting and to stick at whatever they’re good at. Whether it be trading, education, memes.”

Sierra also says, Don’t be a charlatan. “A successful crypto influencer is an honest one,” she says. Don’t try to emulate Michael Saylor or Vitalik Buterin; just be yourself:

“Authenticity is what will make people like and follow you.”

As your account grows, lucrative token promotion offers will inevitably come. But Sierra advises people to ignore them.

“You can ruin your reputation very quickly in crypto, which many people do for a quick buck,” she says.

How did Vanessa Sierra grow her X following?

Sierra loves to poke fun at whatever mess the crypto market or crypto news cycle is in.

Sierra’s pinned X post is from November, where she said, “A gay dating app outperformed Ethereum this year.”

While crypto influencers often say their followings blew up during bull runs, Sierra saw her biggest surge at the bottom.

“I’d say it was like 2023, at the very bottom of the bear market,” she explains. Her constant mocking of the crypto market downturn stood out in a sea of cringeworthy, overly bullish crypto commentators.

“I grew quite fast around then and gained a lot of attention.”

When Sierra isn’t posting degen crypto content or poking fun at the market, she’s teaming up with A-list celebs like Jason Derulo to make comedy skits on Instagram.

Predictions for Vanessa Sierra?

Sierra thinks that when the altcoin bull run eventually comes, it won’t be AI or techy altcoins leading the way like many crypto analysts predict. Instead, she says it’ll just be a repeat of the last bull run.

“I love the boomer coins,” she laughs.

She is “pretty confident” that Cardano (ADA) and XRP will do well in the next rally, but she isn’t sure about Ethereum.

“Everything that your mum and dad invested in, and all the taxi drivers are investing in….because they remember it from last cycle, that’s what I think will perform really well this cycle.”

Ciaran Lyons

Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He’s also a standup comedian and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Project.