Real stories of Bitcoin investors who made their fortunes from the cryptocurrency market
John Ratcliff, a video game developer from Colorado, received his original Bitcoin as a present in late 2012. At the time, each of the upcoming tokens had a price of just $13. John forgot about it, but a year later he noticed that its value climbed up to $72.
Ratcliff, 59, made an investment of $15000 in 2013 at a price of $100 per coin. He is now overseeing the construction of a new $1.4 million mountain-view dream home and made a $250,000 reserve payment for the upcoming Tesla Roadster. Money for the vehicle was earned with the selling of 6 Bitcoins. He also bought a house for his relatives, paid off his children’s student loans, and donated part of his investment earnings to charity. The record price has made those lucky few, who purchased digital assets back in their inception days, incredibly rich.
Bitcoin is a highly unstable decentralised currency, therefore there is no bank or any other kind of authority to guarantee the investment. It is based on a fully anonymous, transparent, and secure data structure called the blockchain, which at its start attracted attention for untraceable transactions. But after the series of its jumps in price, major companies are also starting to invest in crypto.
Savvy cryptocurrency investors are rejoicing in their recent cryptocurrency earning numbers.
Nikki Beesetti, a crypto trader from Chelsea, made her finance investment of $2000 in 2017. Despite being only 24 years old, Nikki already managed to pay off her $19000 student loan and a $35000 loan for a Tesla EV.
Beesetti still attends her regular product manager job, and also has a blog dedicated to her investments. She aims to aid other fellow girl traders to become wealthy, and she sees the bitcoin investment income as a source of the ultimate financial independence.
Niko Dalagelis, 42, a jeweler from Queens, purchased cryptocurrencies in 2011 and is willing to receive payments in his shop through Shopify. Dalagelis, who is not going to spend a penny from his crypto money in the next few years, considers them his retirement fund. He said that the typical customer who is keen to make payment in cryptocurrency is most likely a man buying jewelry for his wife or a girlfriend, adding even though this rarely happens relative to regular cash payments, it still is exciting.
Although Bitcoin is nowadays more similar to gold in its liquidity, the number of shops and service providers, who are eager to receive payment in cryptocurrency besides the regular ways of purchase, grows every day. Crypto Emporium deals in digital assets such as BTC, ETH, and LTC for expensive items such as designer watches or luxury e-bikes. Patrick Hughes, a bartender in New York, even offered two of his bars for sale for 25 BTC or 800 ETH tokens.
Giovanni Mendez, a 33-year-old tax lawyer in Puerto Rico, is working with early bitcoin investors who want to get the best of the region’s tax benefits. Mendez set up his own company in 2017 purely on his own crypto investment earnings.
Still, as it seems for the crypto millionaires, perhaps the biggest status symbol is Tesla. Investors are watching Elon Musk, who became the world’s richest man in January 2021 when Tesla reached $800 in stock price and claims his electricity-powered and environment-friendly vehicles as the most progressive means of transport of the future.
Jim, 41, a utility worker on Long Island, is also considering getting himself a Tesla vehicle. He started to purchase his tokens in 2020 and claims they have grown in value up to more than seven figures. Jim keeps them in numerous hardware wallets (also known as “cold wallets”), which cannot be hacked, locked away at home.
When the price of bitcoins reaches six figures, which he estimates to take place by the end of 2021, he plans to turn his small apartment into a mansion and travel around the world.
Jim started out keeping the news about his cryptocurrency investment to himself at work, but today colleagues, relatives, and even random people from his past are reaching out to him with questions on crypto opportunities and the ways to get in.
Stories like these happen every day, as more and more new investors start buying crypto. Even though the price of Bitcoin and other tokens is far from its initial low, new ways to get into the crypto appear extremely often. As the cryptocurrency price trend appears to be a bull market, new exciting investment opportunities emerge almost every day. People from all over the world are jumping on a train and beginning to invest in crypto, so expect more features about crypto millionaires to come.
