Ikechukwu Sunday Okonkwo better known as Cross went from being a housemate on the Big Brother Naija 2021 show to a full-on metaverse fanatic in a journey that is chronicled as follows.

Long before he even considered auditioning for one of the continent’s biggest reality shows, Cross says he stumbled into the world of cryptocurrency from a WhatsApp group chat he shared with friends from secondary school. 

“It was through friends that I pretty much got into it,” the 30-year-old said in a recent interview with the Nigerian news site, Technext adding, 

“I told them ‘carry me along with this thing that you’re doing.’ That was how I knew that there was this space, this world of crypto. This was between 2015 and 2016.”

Cross shares how he knew it was important to understand the market so he started researching, monitoring the trends, and following and befriending people in the space to see how it all works.

Even though he was aware of the volatile nature of the crypto market, when confronted with it, he made the rookie mistake of withdrawing his assets when the market had fallen.

Cross pointed out how a need for money to pay bills made him sell his crypto at very cheap prices and by the time the market rose again, he was still on the losing end. He says withdrawing his money was a big mistake. 

“Instead of me to wait for it to rise back up. I didn’t. I started withdrawing the money, a little here, a little there. But my friends made money from it because they left their money there. So, I said let me give it another try.” 

Shortly after, BBNaija came calling and fame followed but Cross remained committed to the crypto world, picking up endorsement deals here and there, peddling NFTs on social media and spending hours in the metaverse. 

“You can be here in Lagos and when you go into the metaverse you’ll meet people all over the world. It’s crazy man.”

– Ikechukwu “Cross” Sunday Okonkwo

Cross has also dipped his toes into the NFT pool having bought his first NFT when a friend sent him a number of options for him to see what was available on the market. 

“I didn’t think it was going to do well or anything like that. I just bought it because I like it,” he said. Cross added that this NFT has now more than tripled in value.

Cross has grown his expertise in the NFT world but attributes his success to a simple trick of buying what he likes. 

“That’s it,” he said. “I just buy what I like. If I see it and I like it, then I’ll buy it.”

With his own collection of NFTs reportedly in the works, Cross believes that ownership is a key driving factor for most entertainers trading and launching NFTs. 

“On social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter, having many followers is good,” Cross said. “But at the end of the day, you don’t own them. Instagram owns them. It’s not yours. You might get a cut from advertising here and there, but Instagram owns them.

“But with NFTs you own them. And you own them forever.”

Ikechukwu Sunday Okonkwo a.k.a “Cross”

Even when users choose to resell their NFTs, the original creators still get a reselling fee, between one to ten per cent, for all the times the NFTs are sold.

Cross also commented on the thefts that have plagued the NFT space in recent times emphasizing caution and calling for vigilance saying he is paying attention to the news.  

Since his friend reportedly lost millions in a password recovery type scheme, Cross has become paranoid about random links saying, 

“In front of my eyes, he was losing money until his wallet was almost empty. I don’t just click on links. When people send me links, I call them to ask what that link leads to and is for. One has to be careful.”