How everyday people became millionaires with cryptocurrency
Before Bitcoin became mainstream, these Melburnians bought into cryptocurrency. Here’s their advice to you on reaping the rewards.
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These Melburnians moved into the crypto game early and made serious bank.
Some have cashed in their riches and moved on from the craze, while others continue to reap the rewards of the volatile investment.
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency where transactions are verified, maintained and recorded through a decentralised system (blockchain) rather than by a central authority, such as a bank.
The origins of digital currency date back to 2008 and was being used in 2009.
Regan Gallagher
Anyone remember the Doge meme? The world’s most famous Shiba Inu became the talk of the internet in 2013. For those who haven’t seen it, Kabosu, the dog in question’s image was used with Comic Sans font in the foreground depicting its internal monologue deliberately written in broken English. Off the back of the meme’s internet fame and as cryptocurrencies were taking off, Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer created their own “joke currency” Dogecoin.
The following year, PhD student Regan Gallagher built his own wealth off the joke, introducing what’s considered Australia’s first Doge to AUD exchange after sharing news of his business on Reddit. At the time, the neuroscientist, who is originally from Brisbane but was riding the Melbourne crypto wave when the currency blew up, saw the exchange distribute the bulk of crypto in Australia.
Today Dr Gallagher’s exchange no longer exists, but at 32, he says he made enough money from crypto to retire.
After learning about crypto in his early 20s, Dr Gallagher said he quickly became obsessed, spending just as much time looking into crypto as he did studying his PhD.
“When I learnt about blockchain technology, I was in a really lucky period in my life. I spent a lot of time in libraies, just learning,” he said.
While the academic has now mastered the online trading world, he explained that there is “a lot of space for error” when it comes to learning the ins and outs of the game.
“Technology like bitcoin, there’s been a million like it, so it’s pretty easy to dismiss it as just another scam but there’s something about it. It just seems to defy a lot of things.”
“It’s very difficult to separate good information from bad … fact and fiction are woven together very deeply.”
“I tried to explain it to people but they just didn’t really get it, even for years.”
The guru said the real question is not so much, what is Bitcoin? But what is money?
“People often try to understand bitcoin by understanding the technology but that’s the wrong place to start,” he said.
“Treating it like a stock market or gambling – slot machines – that’s just immaturity, in my opinion,” he said.
For those wanting to enter the game, Mr Gallagher suggested reading the book The Richest Man in Babylon and getting advice from someone who understands it – “someone to coach you.”
And he stressed that first attempts to buy into the sphere should be measured.
“Try with an amount you’re not afraid to lose,” he said.
Jordan Travers
The Melbourne personal trainer dipped his toe in the crypto game in 2013, turning a $2K investment into a cool $1m. Travers, who was 21 at the time, invested $2000 in digital currency Ethereum after returning from a backpacking trip through South America.
Travers forgot about the money until 2017, when he saw a news article on Ethereum.
“The article said the price was $US50 … so I figured my original investment might be worth $20,000 or something,” he said at the time.
But when he logged into his account, he owned 5190 Ethereum.
“I plugged the numbers into my phone: 5190 multiplied by $US50 is … two hundred and sixty grand! I just sat there looking at the screen, I was literally dumbfounded. And I mean literally.”
Travers cashed out at $719,000 and still has $340,000 of the online currency.
But unlike his fellow early investors, he vowed he wouldn’t invest in Bitcoin or any other digital currency in the future.
Edward ‘Ed’ Craven
Mega-rich property developer and Deague Group chief executive Will Deague sold his Toorak mansion for an eye-watering $38m to a mystery buyer earlier this month — who was 26 years old.
Melbourne entrepreneur Edward Craven bought the property, after making millions helping establish Easygo Gaming. The company is believed to be the world’s largest online cryptocurrency casino stake.com, with business partner Bijan Tehrani.
Kyle Stagoll
Born and bred in Melbourne, former male model turned crypto expert Kyle Stagoll made his fortune trading online.
The crypto master, who has been flying back and forth from Miami to Costa Rica, said he always wanted to be a trader ever since he was a little kid.
Remembering back to primary school when he and his mates would play ‘the stock market game,’ the money wiz said he was inspired by a friend’s mum who traded stocks.
“I was in grade five and grade six and one of my friends who lived around the corner, his mum traded stocks part time and she bought a car with her profits.”
“I thought it was the coolest thing ever.”
“I’ve always been obsessed with economics and markets,” he said.
Mr Stagoll came across crypto in his late 20s. But to begin with, he also thought it was a scam.
“At the time, my housemate … was getting into it and he was raving about it. And I just thought that stuff was a scam.”
Mr Stagoll eventually chucked some cash into Litecoin which was trading at around $47 after deciding that Bitcoin – which he recalled was sitting at about $3000 a pop – was too expensive.
“At the time, I was like, it’s already blown up. There’s no point buying that.”
“I had no idea what I was doing.”
In 2017, when Mr Stagoll was still a newbie to the game, he remembered the currency “going nuts.”
“Bitcoin had like a 40-50 per cent pullback when you had the China bans Bitcoin thing and all this crazy stuff was happening,” he said.
During this period, Mr Stagoll attended the Tony Robbins business mastery course in the US, where an expert spoke about Bitcoin.
“When I came home from that course, in a pretty short amount of time, Bitcoin went from being $3,000 to $20,000 in a couple of months.”
“It got me hooked in”
The crypto king said the ease of international transfers with the currency was one of the central things that captivated him.
Unlike international bank transfers, “crypto is instant”, he said.
“Anything that has less friction always wins in the end.”
Good news for those looking to make their money from the super currency.
“It’s definitely possible to make seven figures in a year if you know what you’re doing and you’ve got a decent amount of base capital,” the crypto expert said.
“We’ve got heaps of people in our community that have turned a $10,000 account into a $100,000 account and some even million dollar account.”
Mr Stagoll also revealed the worst trade of his life that saw him unknowingly give up millions.
“I had about $5,000 in Dogecoin. And, this is when the market was completely dead for like a year.”
“I bought in very, very low. Then, I sold it after a pump of 100 per cent, so I made $5000. But if I held it for maybe two or three more months, I would have made about $1.1m.”
When it comes to advice, Mr Stagoll said having a basic understanding of the market structure, risk management and how charts work was a must.
“Standard practice is to only risk 1% of your account per trade. Because if you’re only ever risking 1% per trade, you can never completely delete your account. And that’s going to give you enough time to stay in the market to learn enough to become profitable,” he said.
“People need to be realistic. I always tell people 10,000 hours to mastery,” he said.
“Anyone considering trading crypto needs to understand its an incredibly high risk market and only invest capital they are willing to lose.”
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