A large assortment of plain lucky crypto traders enjoyed their entry into the rich and super-rich club during the boom that lasted during 2020-2021. This was the time when people were left guessing about the ideal ratio of money they should maintain in stocks and cryptos. People investing their money only in stocks were termed ‘old-fashioned’ and too unwise to understand the money-making potential of the currency of the future.
It might have tumbled and seen $2 trillion wiped off within a few months, but it remains in the limelight for many reasons. One of them is about the common US people who made a fortune from cryptocurrency trading during the boom. Many trading enthusiasts held on to their cryptos for a bit too long and ended up losing more than they made at that time. Some, like Terra Luna, crashed and fell to zero value, leaving their holders with an empty crypto wallet.
With fortunes being made overnight and its crushing volatility, estimating the actual wealth of crypto investors is a tricky job. Undoubtedly, the list of people who made an incredibly considerable fortune from crypto trading is long. From lesser-known cryptos to popular ones like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Ripple, Polkadot, Litecoin and Chainlink, for now, the party time is over.
Let’s go back in time and see a list of crypto traders who made millions and billions from Bitcoin. Some who bought it before the crypto boom or others who were smart to make good trading moves, their wealth soared and made them crypto-rich in a quick time.
Here’s the list of the people who made big money from buying and selling cryptocurrency during crypto’s peak time. Let’s begin with some big names.
Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX owner) and Changpeng Zhao (Binance owner) – The crypto trading platform owners in a fight
Here are the two biggest names. We all know the story around Sam Bankman-Fried and his crypto trading exchange and crypto hedge fund FTX. His net worth during the crypto boom was $26 billion and is currently zero. Binance owner Changpeng Zhao whose net worth was almost $100 billion during the crypto peak time, is now worth around $18.5 billion.
The Sam Bankman-Fried and ChengPang Zhao feud has been about blaming each other for what exactly led to the FTX crash and, due to it, the entire crypto market crash. Whatever the inside story is, we know that it is highly unlikely for the FTX account holders to get their money, as any kind of recovery might first go to the secured and non-secured creditors.
Tim Draper – The man who predicts Bitcoin to reach $250000
Much like Chris Larsen, the well-known venture capitalist had around 30000 Bitcoins. He dropped from the billionaire list right after the crypto crash. He is now worth $550 million. He is highly positive, much like other crypto enthusiasts who never give up on the big crypto dream. He predicts Bitcoin to reach $250,000 despite the Sam Bankman-Fried owned FTX crash.
Stefan Thomas – The man with the forgotten crypto wallet password
Stefan Thomas from San Francisco made a fortune in cryptocurrency as his Bitcoin value reached $220 million. His story went viral after a New York Times report revealed to the world that he had forgotten the password of his crypto wallet and had only two attempts to try and open it before it self-destructs.
The latest update is that he has not attempted those two chances. The good thing is that he has "made peace" with his loss after being desperate for such a long period - almost ten years. His story's motive was to teach everyone to secure a digital wallet and to learn to have a secure plan.
Daniel Maegaard – Once the king of NFTs
Daniel Maegaard, an Australian college student, is a perfect example of how you can make money with Bitcoin by taking a calculated risk after turning his $4k into a million by speculating on the cryptocurrency boom.
He made his fortune not once but twice. The first time he gained it was by hedging bets on various cryptocurrencies from 2013 – 2017 and then by getting in early in the explosion of non-fungible tokens and buying a few hundred NFTs at the right time. He was on the top cryptocurrency-rich list. To those who were like, “should I buy bitcoins or not?'' Daniel Maegaard was the perfect role model. Not much is known about his current endeavors, but with NFT trading volume falling by 97% from its peak, not much is expected in terms of his current net worth.
Glauber Contessoto – The Dogecoin crypto believer
When it comes to role models, we all choose to follow different people who inspire us. The story of Glauber Contessoto is none other than actions that Elon Musk inspired.
He said that he invested $180,000 in Dogecoin after learning about meme cryptocurrency on Reddit. Like the main holders of dogecoins, he put his savings into Dogecoins under the trust he had in a tweet by Elon Musk though it is still unclear whether Musk's tweets support the coins.
If you want to learn cryptocurrency, you should try using Ethereum as your guide to give you detailed steps. Starting with Litecoin or Monero will help you advance to higher levels with better skills. But anyways, for now, the news is that he held on to his Dogecoin holding and has lost $3 million.
James Howells – The man with his Bitcoin-holding drive in a landfill
Here’s the big throwaway story. The tale of James Howells is an inspiring story that we should never take for granted the things we hold. In 2013, the IT worker got rid of his drive to store about 7,500 Bitcoin between June and August 2013. He had accumulated these coins four years earlier when they were of little value. Bitcoin current price today hovers around $50000.
With time cryptocurrency shot up in value, and he went in search of it but discovered that he had mistakenly thrown the hard drive out with the trash.
He believes that his plan of recovering the hard drive will be successful. Then the drive would be presented to data recovery specialists who will build it from scratch and recover all the tiny pieces of data on it. But that's just hope. He plans to raise money and invest $11 million in finding the drive from the landfill, which means 110,000 tons of garbage to be sorted.
His proposal includes using human sorters, robot dogs, and an artificial intelligence-powered machine that can find a hard drive on a conveyor belt. Currently, the Newport council is not convinced with Welsman's proposal as they see the entire activity as non-feasible and environmentally harmful.
Chris Larsen – Founder of Ripple (XRP)
The founder of Ripple was named the richest person on Forbes list who made wealth solely from cryptocurrency. He was one the richest crypto holders, known for founding many tech start-ups. He was among the people who made fortunes from cryptocurrency.
According to him, to remain dominant globally, all developers and miners are expected to ditch proof-of-work. He argues that miners, exchangers, and core developers should consider something less taxing to the environment, unlike the old-years mechanism.
Future predictions about cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin and Ethereum, still rate it as high. If you are still stuck on how to buy Bitcoins or invest in cryptocurrencies, reading these inspiring stories will help you so much.
But wait, it is also important to remember that Chris Larsen has lost $2 billion because of the crypto crash, especially the decline in the Ripple (XRP) value.
