In the stories of sudden wealth circulating in the crypto circle, there’s always a thrilling wealth code hidden. But experienced players understand that these legends in the spotlight are essentially extreme cases of high-risk gambling in the crypto market. The following well-known stories should be viewed more as risk warning reports than investment guides.
Li Xiaolai: The Controversial Path from New Oriental Teacher to 'Bitcoin Billionaire'
In 2011, Li Xiaolai, then an English teacher at New Oriental, was introduced to Bitcoin through a friend and began systematically accumulating it when the price was around $6. Leveraging his identity as an early miner and continuous buying, he accumulated over 100,000 BTC before the peak of the bull market in 2013. As Bitcoin broke $19,000 in 2017, the market value of his holdings once exceeded 13.5 billion RMB. However, the other side of this story is that during the bear market in 2018, he sold a large number of tokens to cash out, and later got embroiled in controversy over the 'recording incident,' leading to skepticism about his founded Bit Fund due to compliance issues.
Guo Hongcai (Bao Er Ye): From a Beef Merchant in Pingyao to a Blockchain Evangelist
Guo Hongcai, who made his fortune selling beef, went all in on the crypto field after encountering Bitcoin in 2013. He gradually built an industry chain covering mining machine production and computing power hosting by establishing Bitcoin super nodes and investing in computing power mines. At its peak, his company 'Bitmain' occupied 70% of the global market share in mining machines, with personal asset valuation exceeding 5 billion RMB. However, as regulatory policies tightened and competition in computing power intensified, his mining empire gradually contracted after 2020, leading to a transformation into blockchain education and media.
Jiang Zhuoer: The Journey of Value Discovery for a Rational Investor
Jiang Zhuoer, founder of the Lattice Pool, first encountered Bitcoin in 2011 and chose to study the underlying technology as an observer. It wasn't until 2013, after completing technical validation, that he began systematically arranging mining machines and computing power. Unlike speculators who chase trends, he grasped the timing of entry through a computing power cost model, achieving steady asset appreciation during the three rounds of bull and bear market transitions from 2017 to 2020. His proposed 'Computing Power Pricing Theory' remains an important reference for the mining community to this day.
Kain Ellis: The Roller Coaster of Wealth for an 18-Year-Old Miner
This Australian teenager participated in mining with his home computer when Bitcoin was $1.6 in 2010, accumulating over 20,000 BTC. During the bull market in 2013, he sold part of his holdings at an average price of $120, purchasing luxury items such as a Maserati. However, he subsequently lost everything due to continuous leverage speculation during the bear market in 2018. This story illustrates the brutal law of the crypto world: wealth without risk control is merely a temporary storage in the market.
Rational View of the Wealthy Narrative
The protagonists of these stories share common traits: the time dividend of early entry, acute judgment of industry trends, and a risk tolerance far beyond the average. But let’s not forget that behind every successful case, there are hundreds of thousands of failures. In this 24/7 trading market with a lack of regulation, risks such as contract liquidations, project exits, and hacker thefts are ever-present. The advice from old players is always: invest with spare money, control leverage ratios, and diversify asset allocation; after all, in the crypto circle, surviving is more important than making quick money.
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