Meet the Ordinary People Who Became Crypto Millionaires

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 developed their own companies. 

Will you be the next millionaire? 

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

Jed McCaleb, a DeFi entrepreneur

McCaleb is the co-founder of 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, which has made him a crypto millionaire.

Kristoffer Koch, an unexpected millionaire

Norwegian Kristoffer Koch bought more than 5,000 bitcoins for $27 around 2009, while he was doing its master. According to Koch, he didn’t know that this purchase would be one of the best financial decisions of his life. In fact, when he realized the value of what his wallet contained, he spent an entire day looking for the right password at the same time that 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 main 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 cryptocurrency richest people in the world was the launch of Binance in 2017. The platform was able to raise $15 million in its initial coin offering (ICO), and trading started 11 days later. In seven months, the platform became the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume. 

Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum

A big supporter of Bitcoin from the beginning. In fact, he founded Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. However, he saw some flaws in Bitcoin’s implementation and he decided to create Ethereum. The blockchain Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world, and the blockchain is used by developers and companies to create 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 is the founder of Polychain Capital, a cryptocurrency investing company that he founded after leaving Coinbase in 2016. When he was studying at university, he decided that buying Bitcoin – which was between $20 and $30 at that time – was a good investment.

Furthermore, when he was employed by Coinbase, he asked the company to pay his salary in cryptocurrency as he was sure of the future of this technology. Following this decision was rewarded: he became a millionaire. Forbes estimates Wee’s worth to be more than $4 billion as of April 2021, not only due to his investments but also due to the creation of his company Polychain.

Jeremy Gardner, buying Bitcoin for cash

In 2013, Gardner started to acquire bitcoins from his colleagues in exchange for cash and he 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 aficionados. 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, a crypto market-forecasting platform that works in blockchain.

Cooper Turley, millionaire thanks to Ethereum

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

The young millionaire became interested in Ethereum while he was 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 T-shirt of Bitcoin. 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 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 next years, her crypto investments have grown to reach the seven-figure 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.