Three years ago, a Pepper Pike teen took the plunge and invested his entire life savings into cryptocurrency. Now, 18-year-old Eddy Zillan is a millionaire thanks to the explosive growth of cryptocurrencies.
Business Insider recently interviewed the teen in an article published on Tuesday.
According to the article, Zillan started off small — buying $100 worth of the digital currency. In just a few hours time his investment grew by $10.
"I thought: 'Wow, I just made a 10% return in a day. That's crazy,'" Zillan told Business Insider.
Soon after, Zillan starting buying digital currency in larger amounts using money from his savings and funds he received from his bar mitzvah. First, it was $1,000. Then $5,000. Eventually, the teen put his entire savings of $12,000 into the cryptocurrency.
Soon his $12,000 portfolio worth of cryptocurrency grew to over a quarter million dollars. Within a year the amount reached $350,000.
Now, years later his portfolio has reached over $1 million.
In the interview with Business Insider, Zillan acknowledged that one of the reasons he was able to make so much money in return was timing.
When it comes to digital currency, the one most people think of is Bitcoin. According to Forbes, Bitcoin started 2013 off at around $13 a coin. By 2014, the price had reached around $800. In early 2018 the value climbed to around $20,000 before falling back down to around $8,000 where it has mostly remained.
Zillan said that it wasn't just timing that helped him become a millionaire, it was his understanding of how cryptocurrencies work.
"At the time I invested, there were no YouTubers, there were no investors, there was no one I could learn from," Zillan said in his interview with Business Insider. "There were no books or mentors, and it was really hard to teach myself a formal education in that field."
Now Zillan uses his time and experience to educate others about how digital currency works through his company Cryptocurrency Financial.
According to his website, Zillan teaches first-time digital currency buyers how to use trading platforms, analytics and other data to make smart decisions.
His goal is "to make the crypto community bigger," he told Business Insider.
"I want to see cryptocurrencies as the future," Zillan said.
