3 people who unexpectedly became crypto millionaires… and one who didn’t

A surprise manila folder with millions of Bitcoin, a memecoin that went to the moon and a series of high-stakes poker games — these are some true-life tales of people who struck it rich with crypto.

While there are many stories of skilled traders, miners and gamers who became self-made crypto millionaires, the more interesting ones are those who stumbled into crypto and accidentally struck digital gold.

It was 2013. Two freshman students were sitting at a bar. The guy, a nerdy computer type, was interning at Goldman Sachs. He told the girl — let’s call her Anna — “You should invest in Bitcoin.” The girl, who had the resources, said, “Sure.”

$10,000 was exchanged, and Anna forgot about it. 

Fast-forward to graduation day. Her nerdy computer friend handed her a manila folder with the seed phrases, hard wallet and instructions to “hold onto this for a very long time.” 

The hard wallet sat at her parents’ house until 2020, when Bitcoin rallied again. Around the same time, her husband got curious about crypto.

“I said to him, ‘This is so crazy, but I think I have something like that in my parents’ house,’” she tells Magazine. 

That “something” was several million dollars’ worth of Bitcoin. And just like that, she was a multimillionaire at 25. 

Many crypto rags-to-riches stories are about being in the right place at the right time. For people wanting to become crypto millionaires today, it’s all about the memecoins. 

“The average person is now having to fight institutions and corporate organizations for Bitcoin, and there’s a finite amount,” says Anna, who now works in the crypto industry. “If you buy one Bitcoin at $100,000 or half at $50,000, you’re still making money, but it’s not going to be that you invest $15 to $20 and make millions off it anymore.”

“I have a friend who invested in Fartcoin for a laugh, and it shot up. He didn’t do any research on it at all but just hit a lucky token.”

Making millions from memecoins

Metin Redjepi first learned about crypto in late 2016 when he was an inspector at the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Macedonia. A colleague had told him about Bitcoin, but he was more intrigued by the notion of a new economic model rather than personal gains. 

Redjepi went on to become the global head of community and chief operating officer at live streaming service DLive, which was an early adopter of blockchain technology. He made his first Bitcoin investment in 2017, when it was around $100,000. That same year, he made his first million from crypto. 

Fascinated by crypto culture and online communities, Redjepi started looking at memecoins. “People mostly focus on the technical analysis, which is valid, but I focus on the psychological factors,” he said. 

He dropped about $10,000 into three memecoins (PEPE, DOGE and WIF), which went on to 25-50x in value. He knew the frogcoin in particular had potential right from the beginning.

“When I start to hear about something like that from non-crypto people, I know that it’ll go viral. The Pepe Frog is OG internet culture and a well-known meme. It’s all about the vibes, community and timing,” Redjepi said. 

Redjepi launched his own memecoin in April 2024, on election night in Turkey, when a street interview went viral. An old person mispronounced the mayor of Istanbul’s name during the election broadcast, saying Imaro instead of İmamoğlu. Redjepi launched the IMARO coin that night, and it blew up. 

IMARO hit a peak market cap of $8.5 million. 

“Launching a memecoin doesn’t require much skill, but running it and understanding the sentiment of the community does. 98% of the memecoins die on the first day,” he says.

Buying Bitcoin in 2012 and BNB in the 2017 ICO

Wesley, a 29-year-old high-stakes poker player, is another example of an alternative path to becoming fabulously wealthy with crypto. 

Back when he was still in high school in China, he was a gamer and needed money for equipment. He bought cheap gift cards from Paxful, then resold them on Taobao, the Chinese version of Amazon. He used the profits to buy Bitcoin in 2012. 

He was 16 years old and got into the market long before the ICO boom but jumped on early-stage projects in 2017. His most successful investment was in Binance, and he’s since made a few hundred thousand per coin. 

“It’s luck and belief,” he says of his good fortune. “We got in early. Before 2020, up to 80% of Bitcoin’s trading volume and hashrate was in China, so we had so much advantage.”