How to Become a Bitcoin Millionaire: 5 Key Guidelines

Amazon stock delivered a 100x ROI for investors in 18 years, turning $2.24 on Apr. 24, 2007, into $242 on Feb. 4, 2025, according to historical price data from Yahoo Finance. It only takes $192 weekly to accumulate $10,000 worth of purchases in a year.

A $10,000 contribution made over the course of the 12-months ending Apr. 24, 2007, thusly turned into a $1 million nest egg for the investor by 2025.

But Bitcoin accomplished this incredible feat of 100x ROI in just eight years. Bitcoin’s price rose from $1,000 on Feb. 1, 2017 to $100,000 on Feb 1, 2025.

Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) pulled off this unbelievable hat trick in only four-and-a-half years. ETH traded on for an average daily price of $48 on Apr. 15, 2017. But by Nov. 8, 2021, investors could sell ETH out of their bag for $4,800 per token.

With returns on investment this fast, many investors have made a million dollars or more in ROI by regularly backing cryptocurrencies with their extra savings. Just how many Bitcoin millionaires are there in the world today?

How Many Bitcoin Millionaires?

In Aug. last year, the 2024 Crypto Wealth Report by London-based investment consultancy Henley & Partners estimated there were 172,300 individuals globally who owned $1M or more worth of crypto.

The report counted 85,400 of those to be Bitcoin millionaires, with most or all of their holdings in BTC on Web3’s most secure layer settlement blockchain.

According to Henley, these figures represented a 95% and 111% increase, respectively, in the number of crypto and Bitcoin millionaires over 2023 levels.

So, cryptocurrencies on the blockchain are minting more millionaires faster than ever before.

That disproves the narrative that the Web3 layer of the Internet is a passing fad or that it’s too late for newcomers to earn monster ROIs from buying crypto.

Bitcoin Millionaire Examples

Many crypto investors like their privacy and anonymity, but some Bitcoin millionaires are public figures.

Take Erik Finman, for example, who made a million in ROI from Bitcoin as a teenager after investing $1,000 of his savings in BTC in 2011 when he was only 12 years old and living with his parents in Idaho.

By the age of 25:

– I dropped out of school and moved to SF
– I sold my first startup
– I made my first million in Bitcoin
– I created a working Dr. Octopus suit
– We launched a satellite
– We launched a multi-million dollar crypto startup

Gen-Z gets it done.

— ERIK FINMAN (@erikfinman) July 28, 2024

Then there’s Heather Delaney, a business professional from the UK who spent years steadily buying BTC to save her money. Delany’s stash was worth over a million dollars in 2021.

Tommy and James, two unemployed brothers from Westchester, New York, aged 38 and 42, became multi-millionaires in Shiba Inu (SHIB) coins in 2021 from a total investment of $8,000. They pulled off this remarkable caper over a few months during the coronavirus pandemic.

(On that note, one fundamental evaluation metric for Shiba Inu this week indicates SHIB prices may skyrocket again soon on cryptocurrency exchanges.)

Here are five guidelines for beginning crypto investors for saving up a million-dollar crypto portfolio.

1. Bitcoin’s 4-Year Price Cycle

Legendary American baseball coach and humorist Yogi Berra once said:

“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”

The greatest factor driving Bitcoin’s price on crypto exchange markets is the crypto’s 4-year supply cycle. Since it first launched on Jan 3, 2009, the Bitcoin network has cut by half the daily new supplies of BTC created by the block reward.

After the fourth and most recent Bitcoin halving on Apr. 20, 2024, the block reward created approximately every ten minutes is 3.25 BTC. That targets roughly 450 new BTC a day.

When Bitcoin’s new supply contracts, it’s similar to when the Federal Reserve lowers the supply of new dollars by raising rates, and as a result, the greenback gains purchasing power for goods.

When the Bitcoin network cuts supplies, BTC gains purchasing power for goods, other cryptocurrencies, and dollars. This is reflected by Bitcoin’s price going up (should demand remains the same or increases.)

As a result, a modest dollar cost average of dollars to BTC has historically produced a two-comma ROI.

Over the last two recent cycles, Bitcoin turned a $192 weekly contribution for just one year into $1,000,000 in under eight years. The average monthly car payment for a new vehicle in 2025 is $724.

So, driving a paid-off beater car instead of financing a new vehicle and putting all the savings in a cryptocurrency that delivers similar results could make any investor a millionaire.

2. Daily, Weekly, Monthly Volatility

Dollar-cost averaging Bitcoin and several of the most successful altcoins over the past decade have consistently taken a year’s worth of new car payments and turned them into a million dollars in just a few years.

But, swing trading can deliver that result faster for successful traders. Because of crypto markets’ price volatility, day trading can work even faster than swing trading.

Day traders make trades every day and usually more than once a day. But swing traders may trade once a week, once a month, or a handful of times a year.

This is a more advanced approach to investing in cryptocurrencies that carries greater risks. It can speed up an investor’s accumulation with quick gains, but it can also slow it down with quick losses.

The key to making Bitcoin millions by swing trading or day trading is the old Wall Street adage: Buy low. Sell high. Or as the famous Pennsylvanian author of the Poor Richard’s Almanack, Benjamin Franklin once wrote:

“Early to bed and early to rise keeps one healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

In other words, repeatable success in cyclical markets comes from selling early before most of the market and taking profits after buying early before most of the market does, and prices begin to rise.

The most famous example of swing trading BTC to roll with the Bitcoin markets’ multi-year high and low tides is probably PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund.

The fund made $1.8 billion in profit by selling all of its BTC holdings in Mar. 2022, mere days before the market crashed in a nine-month bear market. After that, Founders Fund began piling up Bitcoin and Ether again as prices began to rise.

Every four-year cycle so far, Bitcoin spends about 2.5 years rallying furiously upward and 1.5 years crashing suddenly or trading sideways.

Investors who follow crypto news at least once a week can recognize these cycles and prioritize buying at a bargain price during the down markets and selling for a very nice profit during the buying seasons.

3. Altcoins and Fundamental Analysis

Bitcoin’s rise inspired Internet developers to create other alternative currencies using the cryptographic blockchain design. The industry and markets often refer to these as altcoins.

There are dozens and dozens of altcoins that have delivered the kind of ROI that has made it possible for many cryptocurrency investors to become Bitcoin millionaires with principal sums the average full-time US laborer can afford in a year of frugality and thrift.

But it’s important to avoid the scams, grift, and hype. Even a Bitcoin millionaire can become a BTC pauper overnight without the proper attention and care to research and understand what they are doing.

Crypto markets are full of new blockchain projects that more or less say we’re like all the other success stories, but without giving specifics that investors can understand, that explain what their unique value proposition is.

A great, really hardcore fundamental analysis is one that studies the problem/solution, feature/benefit, and competitive advantage of an altcoin to determine which currencies may be undervalued by the market.

4. IRS Taxes and Crypto Roth IRAs

19th-century poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson once joked, “Money often costs too much.” There’s interest on borrowed money, and there are taxes on earned money.

But, the taxes on realized capital gains from the profitable sale of cryptocurrencies don’t have to cost too much. In fact, investing in crypto can be a way to save money on your taxes.

Anyone paying taxes in the United States can create a self-directed IRA and use it to buy and hold cryptocurrencies like BTC and XRP. The yearly limit on it is $7,000.

Taxpayers can deduct any amount saved through their IRA from their before-tax income. Depending on a crypto investor’s finances, this could bump them down a tax bracket for the year and significantly lower their tax obligation.

5. Hacks, Scams, and Crashes

One easy way to avoid scams is holding and trading cryptocurrency with a reputable and regulated cryptocurrency exchange or brokerage and custodian.

That is as opposed to reading a web page online of a project you’ve never heard of and then connecting your Web3 wallet and getting out your credit card.

Crypto investors with large holdings who pull some of their portfolio off exchanges and third-party custody to secure themselves use best practices to protect their crypto wallets.

6. Be a Crypto Billionaire

This one is a pro-tip. The easiest way to become a crypto millionaire is if you are a billionaire. Questionable investments in potential rug-pulls will quickly evaporate a few zeros from your net worth and bring you down a notch.

Ok, this one is for fun. You probably wouldn’t be reading this article if you were a billionaire and you were just randomly scanning the Internet to look for ideas on how to become a millionaire. But, if you are – make sure you invest in the latest meme coin with massive marketing and unknown creators – those turn out great.