A shock manila folder with tens of millions of Bitcoin, a memecoin that went to the moon and a collection of high-stakes poker video games — these are some true-life tales of people that struck it wealthy with crypto.
Whereas there are lots of tales of expert merchants, miners and players who grew to become self-made crypto millionaires, the extra fascinating ones are those that stumbled into crypto and by chance struck digital gold.
It was 2013. Two freshman college students have been sitting at a bar. The man, a nerdy pc sort, was interning at Goldman Sachs. He informed the woman — let’s name her Anna — “It is best to put money into Bitcoin.” The woman, who had the assets, mentioned, “Positive.”
$10,000 was exchanged, and Anna forgot about it.
Quick-forward to commencement day. Her nerdy pc pal handed her a manila folder with the seed phrases, arduous pockets and directions to “maintain onto this for a really very long time.”
The arduous pockets sat at her mother and father’ home till 2020, when Bitcoin rallied once more. Across the identical time, her husband obtained inquisitive about crypto.
“I mentioned to him, ‘That is so loopy, however I believe I’ve one thing like that in my mother and father’ home,’” she tells Journal.
That “one thing” was a number of million {dollars}’ value of Bitcoin. And similar to that, she was a multimillionaire at 25.
Many crypto rags-to-riches tales are about being in the precise place on the proper time. For folks eager to turn into crypto millionaires at this time, it’s all concerning the memecoins.
“The common particular person is now having to combat establishments and company organizations for Bitcoin, and there’s a finite quantity,” says Anna, who now works within the crypto business. “When you purchase one Bitcoin at $100,000 or half at $50,000, you’re nonetheless creating wealth, but it surely’s not going to be that you simply make investments $15 to $20 and make tens of millions off it anymore.”
“I’ve a pal who invested in Fartcoin for fun, and it shot up. He didn’t do any analysis on it in any respect however simply hit a fortunate token.”
Making tens of millions from memecoins
Metin Redjepi first realized about crypto in late 2016 when he was an inspector on the Ministry of Financial system of the Republic of Macedonia. A colleague had informed him about Bitcoin, however he was extra intrigued by the notion of a brand new financial mannequin relatively than private beneficial properties.
Redjepi went on to turn into the worldwide head of group and chief working officer at dwell streaming service DLive, which was an early adopter of blockchain know-how. He made his first Bitcoin funding in 2017, when it was round $2,000 to $3,000. He put $100,000 in on the time and by the tip of that 12 months had made his first million from crypto.
Fascinated by crypto tradition and on-line communities, Redjepi began taking a look at memecoins. “Folks principally give attention to the technical evaluation, which is legitimate, however I give attention to the psychological elements,” he mentioned.
He dropped about $10,000 into three memecoins (PEPE, DOGE and WIF), which went on to 25-50x in worth. He knew the frogcoin specifically had potential proper from the start.
“After I begin to hear about one thing like that from non-crypto folks, I do know that it’ll go viral. The Pepe Frog is OG web tradition and a well known meme. It’s all concerning the vibes, group and timing,” Redjepi mentioned.
Redjepi launched his personal memecoin in April 2024, on election night time in Turkey, when a road interview went viral. An outdated particular person mispronounced the mayor of Istanbul’s identify in the course of the election broadcast, saying Imaro as an alternative of İmamoğlu. Redjepi launched the IMARO coin that night time, and it blew up.
IMARO hit a peak market cap of $8.5 million.
“Launching a memecoin doesn’t require a lot talent, however operating it and understanding the sentiment of the group does. 98% of the memecoins die on the primary day,” he says.
Shopping for Bitcoin in 2012 and BNB within the 2017 ICO
Wesley, a 29-year-old high-stakes poker participant, is one other instance of an alternate path to turning into fabulously rich with crypto.
Again when he was nonetheless in highschool in China, he was a gamer and wanted cash for gear. He purchased low cost reward playing cards from Paxful, then resold them on Taobao, the Chinese language model of Amazon. He used the income to purchase Bitcoin in 2012.
He was 16 years outdated and obtained into the market lengthy earlier than the ICO increase however jumped on early-stage tasks in 2017. His most profitable funding was in Binance, and he’s since made a couple of hundred thousand per coin.
“It’s luck and perception,” he says of his luck. “We obtained in early. Earlier than 2020, as much as 80% of Bitcoin’s buying and selling quantity and hashrate was in China, so we had a lot benefit.”
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Wesley began taking part in high-stakes poker in 2022, after shedding tens of millions from buying and selling crypto. He sees similarities in each. “It takes talent and thoughts management,” Wesley mentioned. He’s one thing of a stereotypical crypto millionaire now, flying on personal jets to Vegas, partying on yachts and taking part in poker with celebrities and billionaires, akin to MrBeast, Neymar, Jimmy Butler and Ryan Garcia.
“I purchased a Ferrari from Travis Scott for $2.8 million and bought it for $3.5 million,” he says.
Cautionary story: By no means promote your Bitcoin for pizza
Whereas some folks turned an early brush with Bitcoin into a number of tens of millions, many extra cashed out with what appeared like large income on the time.
Brian Huang’s story serves as a cautionary story. Huang first heard about crypto when he was a pupil at MIT in 2014.
“MIT ran an experiment the place they gave each pupil a 3rd of a Bitcoin. It was value about $100 on the time. Each undergrad was like, ‘Hell, yeah, I’m going to get a free $100 bucks for filling out slightly survey.’ The objective was to see what folks would do with digital forex,” says Huang.
It was described to college students as a digital forex, much like what you’d have in a sport.
Unsurprisingly, many of the college students traded it for pizza and beer. That “survey” could be value about $40,000 at this time. Not millionaire standing, however not unhealthy totally free cash.
“The sushi restaurant, pizza store and bakery down the road all accepted Bitcoin as a result of they knew some 4,000 college students had entry to it. They made it very easy. You’d go to a sushi restaurant, scan a QR code and simply ship your cash to that code. They capitalized on it in a means that even companies haven’t finished at this time. It was additionally a unique time by way of regulation.”
“A few of these native companies might have had some foresight in considering, ‘That is going to be value one thing at some point.’ I believe most of them bought, too,” he explains.
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Whereas millionaires weren’t made, what did come out of the experiment was a cohort of scholars inquisitive about crypto and lots of founders. “There are such a lot of nice startups that first obtained uncovered to Bitcoin again then.”
Huang ended up holding his Bitcoin for 2 years. “I bought it when it was about $1,000, so I had 10x my funding. I assumed I’d crushed it.”
“It was a wild time again then,” he says, though he provides there are nonetheless alternatives at this time. “I believe we’re coming into one other fascinating interval with onchain shares and issues like that. There are some parallels.”
Huang says there’s numerous untapped liquidity in Bitcoin, given its dominance throughout crypto. The power to borrow in opposition to your Bitcoin positions in a permissionless means goes to be an enormous unlock over the following 12 months or two, he believes.
These self-made millionaires (and the cautionary story) show that in crypto, something is feasible. Even amid the turbulence of the previous few years, crypto has minted extra crypto millionaires than another asset class — with 172,300 people globally who maintain over $1 million in crypto belongings as of July 2024.
Within the first half of 2025, greater than 26,000 folks grew to become Bitcoin millionaires.
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Amanda Smith
Amanda Smith is an achieved author and tradition journalist. Her capability to carry a mirror as much as society, to see each the malaise and majesty, has led to assignments with extremely revered titles akin to The Guardian, Enterprise Insider, and Nationwide Geographic. She’s lined crypto, AI and finance for CNET, NerdWallet, and MIT Know-how Evaluate. An Australian, she presently lives in New York Metropolis.