Yes, many people have become millionaires—and even billionaires—from cryptocurrency investments. As of late 2025, an estimated 241,700 individuals worldwide have crypto holdings worth $1 million or more.
There are now an estimated 241,700 individuals with crypto holdings worth $1 million or more, up 40% from last year, according to Henley & Partners and New World Wealth. There are 450 crypto centimillionaires, or those with crypto holdings of $100 million or more, and 36 crypto billionaires, according to the report.
If you had invested $1,000 in Bitcoin five years ago (around mid-2020), your investment would have grown significantly, potentially turning into anywhere from roughly $9,000 to over $14,000 by late 2024/early 2025, representing huge returns, though it wouldn't have been a smooth ride due to Bitcoin's volatility and price swings. The exact value depends on the specific date you invested, as Bitcoin's price fluctuates, but holding it through its major bull runs and pullbacks would have yielded substantial profits.
In a groundbreaking transaction on May 22, 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz made history by purchasing two Papa John's pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin, marking the first real-world commercial use of the cryptocurrency. At the time, the Bitcoin were worth a mere $41.
From a 12-Year-Old Dropout to a Bitcoin Millionaire Before Age 18 – The Bet That Shocked the World. Erik Finman is a well-known bitcoin investor who increased his bitcoin holdings from 100 (about 1,000 USD in 2011) to 450 (worth 4.5 million USD in 2019).
If you invested $10K in Bitcoin in 2012, you'd have over $71 million today. It was 2012, and most people were too busy scrolling through videos on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, given the boom of social media platforms around the time.
James Howells, from Newport, who claimed his ex-girlfriend mistakenly threw away a hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoins in 2013, has given up on retrieving the wallet, currently worth £695m, but has been hit with a £117,000 legal bill from his fight.
15 years ago, a software developer paid for two pizzas with 10,000 bitcoin. Those pies would be worth $1.1 billion today.
It'd also be prudent for investors interested in crypto to buy and hold it for the long term, as they would with other financial assets, Johnson said. Morningstar suggests holding cryptocurrency for at least 10 years, Arnott wrote.
If you're holding crypto, there's no immediate gain or loss, so the crypto is not taxed. Tax is only incurred when you sell the asset, and you subsequently receive either cash or units of another cryptocurrency: At this point, you have “realized” the gains, and you have a taxable event.
“From a technical point of view, the $100,000 level represents an important and symbolic resistance, the breach of which could attract new capital, especially due to renewed confidence among long-term investors,” says Stefano Bargiacchi, analyst at Directa SIM.
Blockchain data shows that there are just under 1 million wallet addresses that hold one full bitcoin. Many large holders, such as cryptocurrency exchanges, hold their bitcoin across multiple wallets, which puts the estimate for individual owners of at least one bitcoin closer to 800,000.
Yes, making $100 a day in crypto is possible but requires significant capital (often $2,500+), a solid trading strategy, strict discipline, and effective risk management, as it involves high risks, especially with day trading and leverage; it's not a get-rich-quick scheme and often demands treating it seriously, like a craft, with consistent learning and market monitoring.
With that in mind, two cryptocurrencies that are often positioned as potential millionaire-makers are XRP (XRP +5.81%) and Dogecoin (DOGE 0.21%). Both rank among the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the world by market cap, and both have seen brief periods of explosive upside gains during the past few years.
In July 2022, Tesla quietly dumped roughly 75% of its Bitcoin holdings, worth about $936 million, during a period of macroeconomic uncertainty and market stress.
The Impact of Transaction Fees and Market Volatility on Buying Bitcoin for $10. Investing in Bitcoin for just $10 may seem like a good idea, but you must consider transaction fees and market volatility. Transaction fees can vary depending on the exchange or platform used to buy Bitcoin.
Taking a buy-and-hold position in Bitcoin five years ago would have delivered massive returns for investors. As of this writing, Bitcoin is up 962.3% over the period. That means that a $1,000 investment in the token made half a decade ago would now be worth more than $10,620.
Once the last bitcoin is mined, block rewards disappear. Miners will then rely entirely on transaction fees to earn revenue. These fees are paid by users whenever they send Bitcoin, and they'll need to be high enough to keep miners incentivized to secure the network.
That mindset is exactly what makes solo Bitcoin mining interesting again, especially when it doesn't require industrial infrastructure to get started. The BlockChance™ Bitcoin Ticket Miner takes a fundamentally different approach to mining, available for $59.99 (MSRP $149.99).
James Howells seeks to purchase a Welsh landfill to recover a lost hard drive. The drive allegedly contains $800 million in bitcoin, thrown away in 2013. Newport City Council cites environmental concerns and legal restrictions against excavation.