How a Singaporean ex-teacher landed top Web3 job from UAE royalty

Three years ago, Derek Lim was teaching English and critical thinking for the Singapore Ministry of Education.

Unhappy with his work in what he calls a very “broken” system, he took an online course in blockchain technology from the University of California, Berkeley. Lim had started trading crypto in 2019, but the course set him on a new path – one that would result in his accepting a position in Dubai for a venture capital firm run by a member of an Emirati royal family.

Image credit: Tech in Asia

By 2021, Lim was fascinated by decentralization, a core concept in Web3, which came as a direct result of his frustrations at work. He described the teaching environment in Singapore as a very rigid, hierarchical system that incentivized mediocrity and conformity. He started to believe that decentralization allowed for a more equitable system of meritocracy.

“Too many things are, for lack of a better term, centralized and top-down,” he tells Tech in Asia. “I could not, for the life of me – even now – understand why people should accept a pure top-down kind of way to live.”

Cliche? Yes, and he admits it. His views have also become more nuanced now, he says. But in 2021, they were strong enough to convince him to break his contract with Singapore’s Ministry of Education and go into crypto trading full time.

Lim, now 31, won’t say exactly how well he did trading, other than to say his gains reached seven figures. He admits to taking losses in 2022 when the market crashed, but he says the gains far outweighed what he had made as a teacher.

“I dare say that I’m pretty successful in terms of growing my portfolio, but I did lose a lot in those crashes as well. I definitely still have a good sizable chunk,” he says.

New opportunities in Dubai

The success led to other opportunities. By 2022, Lim was head of crypto insights at Bybit, a trading platform, and was even writing articles on crypto for Tech in Asia.

Now, two years later, Lim is heading to Dubai, where he will lead a studio for Web3 startups for Ghaf Studios, a sister company of VC firm Ghaf Capital.

Lim is part of a growing number of people moving to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the country pushes the Web3 industry with new initiatives and regulations. Despite the downturn across the industry in many countries, the UAE still has a stated goal of becoming a global crypto hub.

Derek Lim (center) speaks at session during Token 2049 in Singapore. / Photo courtesy of Derek Lim

“I firmly believe that Dubai will be a tech hub in years to come,” Lim says. “They have the right infrastructure and leadership for that. And now they are starting to get the right people for that as well.”

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