From Rags to Riches: Meet the Ordinary People Who Became Crypto Millionaires

22 views 5:14 am 0 Comments November 28, 2023

Many people approach cryptocurrencies with the idea of increasing their wealth, following the successful stories of the people who were Bitcoin early adopters and now enjoy the returns of their financial decisions. Moreover, Bitcoin is one of the examples of the democratization of access to build wealth by those who don’t come from a wealthy background.

Average people have become millionaires due to their early investments in one or another cryptocurrency, their trading skills, or their involvement in developing the blockchain industry. Some approached crypto when it was not a thing, and some believed in the technology and set up their own companies. 

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Here are some of the ordinary people who become millionaires in the crypto world:

Jed McCaleb, a DeFi entrepreneur

McCaleb co-founded Ripple (XRP), one of the most outstanding DeFi platforms currently in the crypto market, and Stellar (XLM), another open-source, decentralized protocol to convert digital currency into fiat money. Following what has been said in the introduction, he was also one of the earliest Bitcoin developers and later became involved in these projects, making him a crypto millionaire.

Kristoffer Koch, an unexpected millionaire

Norwegian Kristoffer Koch bought more than 5,000 bitcoins for $27 around 2009 while doing its master. According to Koch, he didn’t know that this purchase would be one of the best financial decisions of his life. When he realized the value of what his wallet contained, he spent an entire day looking for the correct password. At the same time, he realized that he had become a millionaire overnight. 

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss

Most known following the release of the film ‘The Social Network,’ which explains the legal dispute between Mark Zuckerberg and them over the creation of Facebook. The twins received $65 million and Facebook stocks in the 2008 settlement. 

Afterward, they started to invest in Bitcoin. According to the Washington Post, the twins owned 1% of the circulating bitcoins as of November 2013. They are also the founders of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, which has contributed to the wealth amassed with Bitcoin. 

Changpeng Zhao (CZ) selling his house to invest it all in Bitcoin

Changpeng Zhao, best known as CZ, is the founder and CEO of Binance, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchange platforms in the world. According to the Forbes list 2018 ‘The Richest People in Cryptocurrency”, CZ is the third crypto-rich person in the world, with a net worth of $1.1-2 billion.

In 2013, CZ sold his apartment in Shanghai and invested all the money in Bitcoin. However, the milestone that catapulted him to the selected group of the wealthiest cryptocurrency people in the world was the launch of Binance in 2017. The platform raised $15 million in its initial coin offering (ICO), and trading started 11 days later. The venue became the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume in seven months. 

Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum

A big supporter of Bitcoin from the beginning. He founded Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. However, he saw flaws in Bitcoin’s implementation and decided to create Ethereum. The blockchain Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world, and developers and companies use the blockchain to develop and build thousands of decentralized applications and coins. Its estimated net worth is $1.5 billion.

Olaf Carlson-Wee received his salary in crypto.

Olaf Carlson-Wee founded Polychain Capital, a cryptocurrency investing company, after leaving Coinbase in 2016. When studying at university, he decided that buying Bitcoin – between $20 and $30 at that time – was a good investment.

Furthermore, when Coinbase employed him, he asked the company to pay his salary in cryptocurrency as he was sure of the future of this technology. Following this decision, he was rewarded: he became a millionaire. Forbes estimates Wee’s worth to be more than $4 billion as of April 2021 due to his investments and the creation of his company, Polychain.

Jeremy Gardner is buying Bitcoin for cash.

In 2013, Gardner started acquiring bitcoins from his colleagues in exchange for cash and quickly increased his wealth by doubling it. At age 25, he had amassed a million dollars in Bitcoin.

He is well-known for the property called ‘The Crypto Castle,’ a three-story home in San Francisco that welcomes other cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Gardner claims that those who occupy the Crypto Castle have made millions of dollars using cryptocurrencies.

With a reported net worth of $300 million, Gardner has created a crypto empire by profiting from cryptocurrencies and disseminating knowledge, as it has two other companies, Blockchain Education Network, which aims to increase education around cryptocurrency, and Augur. This crypto market-forecasting platform works in blockchain.

Cooper Turley, millionaire thanks to Ethereum

In 2018, when Bitcoin was worth $2,000 and Ether $100, Cooper invested almost all his money in Ether. His persistence to avoid touching those investments has allowed him to reach a seven-figure net worth by age 25, according to CNBC Make It.  

The young millionaire became interested in Ethereum while studying music business at university in 2017. The potential of blockchain to change the music industry and help artists take control over their music and their profits makes him decide to invest in this new technology. 

Erik Finman, a millionaire teenager

In 2010, Erik Finman went with his elder brother to a protest in Washington, DC, where he saw someone wearing a Bitcoin T-shirt. When he asked his brother what that was, his brother said, ‘It’s going to end Wall Street.’

A year later, he took $1,000 that his grandma had given him and invested it all in Bitcoin, which was trading at around $10 at the time. It is well known-how Bitcoin has grown in the last 13 years and the returns that it has made to its early adopters. Therefore, Finman is considered a crypto millionaire. When he was 15 years old, he sold $100,000 worth of Bitcoin and started an education platform called Botangle; he sold it for 300 Bitcoins a few years later, further expanding his Bitcoin holdings.

Rachel Siegel, from substitute teacher to crypto millionaire

It was 2017 when Siegel was working as a substitute teacher in New York. After attending an after-party of a cryptocurrency conference, she decided to put her weekly spare money – around $25 – into crypto. Over the following few years, her crypto investments have grown to reach the seven-figure mark in February 2022, according to CNBN. 

Today, Siegel does not focus her career anymore on education, but she is the founder of Crypto Finally, a platform that pushes for the mass adoption of blockchain technology.