METROIles, a 37-year-old NHS doctor from London, has been trying to persuade his friends to buy cryptocurrency for years. In recent weeks, the “Trump pump” on cryptocurrency prices has left them envious. “They have watched with frustration as my bet paid off,” he says.
Miles’ cryptocurrency portfolio is now worth £2.3 million, despite withdrawing around £600,000 earlier this year to buy a house. “It has set me up for life,” says Miles, who invested £4,000 in bitcoin in 2012. “My pot fluctuates by hundreds of thousands every day, but I have been through years of volatile periods.”
Miles was one of dozens of people who shared with The Guardian why they had become retail cryptocurrency investors (regular people who buy blockchain digital currencies) and how their investment had fared over time.
The price of bitcoin has surpassed $97,000 (£76,500), a new record, as investors see Donald Trump’s return to the White House as a harbinger of favorable conditions for cryptocurrencies that will legitimize them as mainstream assets. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has found that 12% of UK adults own cryptocurrency.
Many respondents said they had entered the cryptocurrency market in the past four years, with some using additional funds they had accumulated during Covid lockdowns to purchase coins through apps and platforms that were easier to use than the acquisition process. of blockchain currencies.
Responses also reflected a growing trend toward professionals in jobs such as teaching, banking, nursing or IT investing, rather than “Tech Bros” historically associated with the cryptosphere.claiming that such investments had been his best, or only, option for accumulating significant personal wealth.
Dozens of middle-class respondents said they had lost trust in existing systems and had turned to cryptocurrencies in the hope that it would help them achieve life goals such as having a child, buying a house or traveling.
Julian, 57, a cartoonist, homeowner and father of four from Nottingham, was one of several respondents who said they had bought bitcoin to insure against soaring inflation.
“I became increasingly alarmed because not only was virtually zero interest being paid on my savings, but the value of every pound I owned was also being reduced due to quantitative easing, as the government happily printed money to bail out the banks.” , said. says.
Julián decided to invest most of his savings. “Very soon after, the price crashed and I was down 50% for over a year, but I never once considered selling because I had done my homework and knew that’s how it worked,” he says.
After four years of constantly “buying the dips,” his bitcoin stack has been performing very well.
“I have no plans to sell it and I see it as an inheritance for the children. I’m pretty sure its value will continue to increase. How much bitcoin do I have? “It’s not enough.”
Many armchair investors expressed their hopes that bitcoin could reach record levels of $120,000 or more by the first quarter of 2025.
“If the United States adopts bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, the sky is the limit,” says a Dublin lawyer, whose €40,000 investment in bitcoin reached a value of €62,000 last week.
Silas Gunn, 18, from North Yorkshire, shares this confidence. Gunn made his first bitcoin purchase about three years ago, after finding out about it through YouTube.
“I have invested around £5,000 in cryptocurrency and currently have a portfolio of around £95,000,” he says. Gunn expects this to rise to £500,000 by the end of Bitcoin’s Current Four-Year Halving Cyclea phenomenon that greatly influences price predictions and trading behavior.
Many in the crypto community expect Trump’s arrival The administration will end the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s “regulation by enforcement” approach to crypto industries over the past four years—the use of case-by-case legal actions against interested parties instead of rule making.
Claire, 50, a nurse from New Zealand who started investing in cryptocurrencies about 10 years ago, was among many respondents who were uncomfortable benefiting from Trump’s election victory.
“Trump’s re-election has led to a fairly significant increase in my wealth. I feel a little guilty, as if it were almost dirty money,” he says.
Although Claire believes in cryptocurrencies as a philosophical project of decentralized reorganization and has He has always been confident in his success, and plans to withdraw money soon.
“I had a lot of fun with it. I really need to be a little more sensible now and maybe buy real estate,” she says.
Claire believes that the average crypto investor has changed over time. “It is surprising how many doctors and nurses are investing in cryptocurrencies. It’s because nowadays it would be difficult to earn this amount of money any other way.”
While thousands of amateur investors like Claire have reaped significant rewards in the cryptosphere, others have only lost money.
Mark, a children’s cycling instructor from the north of England, started buying cryptocurrency in 2013. “The gradual acceptance of bitcoin by the legacy financial world increased my confidence in it,” he says.
“But I made countless stupid mistakes, had cryptocurrency stolen, lost my faith in bitcoin and sold it, then bought it back at a higher price. I tried to negotiate and failed miserably. Since 2017, I left it alone and it is the best financial decision I have ever made.”
Many respondents felt that a deep understanding of blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency market is essential for successful investing. Others attributed their crypto riches to “nothing but pure luck.”
Mitchell, from Minnesota, in his 30s and earning $100,000 a year in the tech industry, purchased 16,000 Dogecoin – touted by Elon Musk as the “people’s cryptocurrency” – for $1,300 between 2021 and 2022. It is currently worth around $6,000. dollars.
“I figured if I ever got to $100 a coin, it would be an easy million,” he says. “By understanding cryptocurrencies better now, I know that Dogecoin will almost certainly never reach those heights.”
In December 2023, having seen housing prices rise faster than he could save, Mitchell made “a desperate bet,” he says, and bought a single bitcoin for $42,000. In just under a year, that investment has more than doubled to $90,000.
Mitchell now fears a “massive” cryptocurrency crash in the near future, but has decided not to sell for now.
“I guess I continue on this path in the hope that the analysts predicting around $100,000 for bitcoin by the end of 2025 are correct, although the most important thing I’ve learned in the last four years is that no one makes those assumptions. “You have some idea what they’re talking about,” he says.
“However, if they’re right, maybe I can finally afford that house.”