From Colombia to Dubai: How Andres Meneses Built a Global Voice in Web3

Andres Meneses, a Colombian-born entrepreneur now based in Dubai, has built a global profile in Web3 by turning personal hardship into a platform for crypto education and cross-cultural connection. Meneses first encountered Bitcoin in 2016 while trying to send money from the United Kingdom to his family in Colombia; by 2022 he was appearing at Binance’s fifth anniversary events and hosting Crypto OGs, a Web3 podcast approaching 200 episodes and described as a multi award winning platform. Today Meneses’ presence spans Binance Live—where he is shown with more than 82,000 followers—and a reported broader audience of more than 1.5 million across platforms, while his work has taken him to conferences including TOKEN2049, Binance Blockchain Week, Paris Blockchain Week, AIBC World and SiGMA Eurasia.

“Trade Like a Pro.”

The phrase above is the title of OKX’s 2023 global campaign that featured Meneses as one of the exchange’s real users and international personalities; it illustrates how his on-stage visibility and collaboration with major exchanges have pushed him from content creator to industry interlocutor. Meneses’ path to that visibility, however, began in far more prosaic circumstances. Born in Colombia, he has recounted periods of severe financial hardship during which moving money across borders was a matter of survival. His years in Europe were similarly austere: he has described sleeping in a mechanic’s garage, relying on food banks and taking whatever work was available as he tried to build a more secure future.

Those early struggles framed Meneses’ introduction to cryptocurrency. With a background in engineering, technology and digital design, he discovered Bitcoin while looking for cheaper, faster remittance options in 2016 and soon began to explore blockchain’s broader potential to reduce the frictions he had personally experienced. By 2019 Meneses says he had “lost everything”; rather than exit the industry, he invested his remaining resources in building a public-facing personal brand. Instagram became an early vehicle for translating technical topics into accessible stories aimed at ordinary people rather than only sophisticated traders.

That strategy helped scale his audience. Crypto OGs, launched as a Web3 podcast, grew into a substantial program on Binance Live and has expanded into a wider business ecosystem that spans Web3, AI, media and technology. Recognition for his role in the sector has followed: he has been associated with Entrepreneur Middle East’s Top 100 entrepreneurs, received industry acknowledgement from Arabian Business within the crypto sector, and was named among Blockchain Magazine’s Top Crypto Influencers in 2025.

Outlook

• Meneses is focusing increasingly on prediction markets, which he believes can make blockchain products relevant to everyday events and decisions and serve as a gateway for broader participation.
• His bilingual reach—building audiences in both English and Spanish—positions him as a bridge between Latin America, the Middle East and global tech communities.
• Beyond podcasting, Meneses’ collaborations with exchanges and appearances at major industry events suggest continued influence in shaping how Web3 narratives are communicated to diverse, international audiences.