5 Success stories by crypto millionaires (or getting rich from scratch)

The time of writing isn’t our finest hour, to be honest. Bitcoin (BTC) has decreased by over 56% from its last All-Time High (ATH) in November 2021. In addition, the whole cryptocurrency market lost around 57% since then [CoinMarketCap]. But yes, we still had and have numerous crypto millionaires around.

We can’t forget that we’re also way too far from the Bitcoin All-Time Low (ATL) registered in 2013: $65 per coin. That implies an increase of over 44,500% —up to $29,000 per coin. Same story for a lot of altcoins around, including, of course, Ethereum (ETH).

So, in these bearish times, it’s worth remembering that crypto could come very, very bullish if you invest wisely, no matter the coin involved. Let’s discover some nice stories from crypto millionaires (and previously just common people) ahead.

Erick Finman (and grandma)

This little guy was barely eleven when he decided to buy some bitcoins in 2011. A great year to buy BTCs, indeed, because the price was barely at $12 per token. His granny borrowed him $1,000 for the great purchase, and his older brother helped him in the process.

Two years passed, and Bitcoin hit $1,200 per coin. Finman made over $100,000 with his past investment. το 2014, he used the money to create an educational startup. He moved to Silicon Valley (USA) and made a deal with his parents: if he could earn a million dollars by the age of 18, he wouldn’t go to college.

By 2015, he sold his startup for 300 BTC. He’s been involved in several businesses since then, but he sure kept his promise and didn’t go to college. If he just waited for the 2017 boom, με Bitcoin at $17,000 per coin, then those 300 BTC became around $5.1 million. New crypto millionaire there!

A Redditor and an old PC

Imagine it: after years of being lost, you finally find an old hard drive with hundreds of bitcoins. It’s better than winning the lottery. That’s the tale of an anonymous Redditor in 2021. They shared the discovery on Reddit, with the title “I found the private keys to my 127 Bitcoins I lost 8-9 years ago. I’m at a loss for words”.

Σύμφωνα με their story, the Redditor was very young when he got the soon-to-be treasure. They participated in surveys and faucets to earn a few coins. They planned to use them to play an online game —that accepted bitcoins, but they didn’t have the chance. Their old PC crashed, and the coins were left there, dormant, and almost forgotten.

Years later, he came back to that old PC and tried to recover the data. Surprisingly, 127 BTC were still there, waiting for him. He cashed out and made over $4 million, at $33k per coin. Sadly, they didn’t wait for the ATH in November.

The Pineapple Fund

We don’t know much about the crypto millionaire dubbed “Pine” or his whole net worth. However, we do know that they’re an early (and shy) Bitcoin miner, who got filthy rich over the years thanks to that. The reason why Pine is famous now is for the “Pineapple Fund”: a massive Bitcoin donation to several charities worldwide, back in 2017.

As they described:

“What do you do when you have more money than you can ever possibly spend? Donating most of it to charity is what I’m doing. For reference, The Pineapple Fund is bigger than the entire market cap of bitcoin when I got in, and one of the richest 250 bitcoin addresses today.”

As a result, the Pineapple Fund gave away around $55 million in BTCs to 60 charities. These include organizations like The Water Project, Internet Archive, BitGive, GiveDirectly, Open Medicine Foundation, Institute for Justice, Green Steps, and MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). Thanks for that, Pine.

Dan Conway and Ethereum

Crypto millionaires didn’t get rich only with bitcoins. Indeed, it’s usual that most of them have a healthy and diversified portfolio —of course, including Ethereum. Dan Conway took that to the next level, though. He’s the typical case of “please, don’t try this at home”. Basically, Dan bet all his life savings and the familiar house on Ethereum in 2016.

“I was a middle-aged guy with a family who had never been on the cutting edge of anything. But I was about to bet everything I had on an unproven virtual currency called Ethereum. This could only end two ways: I’d lose everything I owned, or make a fortune.”

To his credit, Dan made detailed research before investing —and even became obsessed with Ethereum. He put $300,000 in ETH, and it didn’t always go well. He experienced losses at some point but just waited until the end of 2017. Then, he cashed out around $13 million. He went to travel with his family and published a book about his experience: “Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire: My Unlikely Escape from Corporate America.”

Jeremy Gardner and Augur

Gardner is widely known as a self-made millionaire thanks to Bitcoin. Just like other crypto millionaires around, he was early in the game. Back in 2013, he started his investments for curiosity, but it didn’t last much that way. He was amazed by the idea of decentralization, where no intermediaries are needed to send and receive money. Very soon, he turned most of his savings and stock holdings into cryptocurrencies.

The investments were fruitful, but he didn’t disclose the amount he owns. He’s also one of the founders of Augur (REP), one of the largest prediction markets on the blockchain. As a curiosity, we can say that Augur was the first-ever Initial Coin Offering (ICO) launched on Ethereum —and it was a success. It raised $5.2 million for the development of the platform, and 16% of the native tokens went to the founding team.

Since then, Jeremy has also founded the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) and the “Crypto Castle”, a hub designed for crypto entrepreneurs in San Francisco. And just like he said:

“We’ve been told that it’s going to die so many times. And yet here it is, stronger than ever. I think there’s a certain sense of vindication if you were investing in this technology and people were calling you stupid for a long time. We’ve gone from a point where the success of blockchain was unlikely or infinitesimally small and is now guaranteed.”

Stop there: not only crypto millionaires

There are a lot more success stories around Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Maybe with more modest earnings, from a couple to thousands of dollars. These profits could come from the early adoption of a promising altcoin, from εξόρυξη ρευστότητας or arbitrage in a Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform, from some activity inside the Metaverse, and even from the creation or trading of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

However, we must always consider that this is a highly risky market. Current crypto millionaires not only had some luck: they did their own research (DYOR) before investing. Besides, commonly (let’s not make a “Dan Conway” here), they didn’t bet what they weren’t capable to lose. If you do this, you can end up “Over the Edge” or like the disappointed Terra investors recently.

Be careful! And please enjoy (and don’t suffer) your trading.

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