Everyone wants to get an easy Lambo by placing a few bets here and there. Let’s pick the best ICO. Hope for a 100x return in 5 months, and voila, that’s a Lambo. Life’s good, right?

But it isn’t that easy according to these entrepreneurs. They have earned it the hard way. They didn’t dig gold, however. They’ve been selling shovels instead.  Let’s take a look.

Bitmex Co-founder, 34 year-old Ben Delo | British Youngest Self-Made Billionaire

So from the news story, it says Bitmex was founded by 3 persons only — Ben Delo, Samuel Reed, and Arthur Hayes. Their company was founded in 2014. 

I am pretty sure Bitmex wasn’t all that much of a hit between 2014 to 2017. It really only becomes a big thing recently when everyone’s trying to short and long BTC while BTC isn’t pumping to the moon.

A closer look at this founding story, it says he was regularly eating at McDonald’s with his wife and was living through at AirBnB hostels just to get by. That lasted for all his early founding years, and he worked 18-hour days.

Okay, wow. Must say I am impressed by his sheer determination and will power to grind through that. I know that their company is now moving in to the most expensive office in Central of Hong Kong, yet the co-founder himself is still living that frugal lifestyle he used to live.

Gotta congratulate them for what they have achieved, and hats off to him and their early founding team for being able to go through that drill. It certainly sounds like many sleepless nights to me (if I were to even try that).

Kraken — Founded by Jesse Powell | One of The Early Exchanges that Still Runs Today. Estimated Revenue US$4m+/Month

Jesse Powell said he founded Bitcoin because he wanted to make sure there’s a better replacement of Mt. Gox. Clearly, Kraken did evolve from the aftermath of Mt. Gox, after learning from their failure experience. 

It was said that Jesse Powell did two years of development and beta testing before he finally launched his exchange in 2013. The company was founded in 2011, and it’s only actually launched in 2013.

Guys, two years of grinding like a nerd at home, and eating cheap pasta while making zero income. Letting go of some well-paid job opportunities in pursuit of a mission. It’s not anything an average dude could do.

Since 2011 till 2018, they have been intact. As of today, they are still standing. At a quick look on CoinMarketCap, their daily trading volume is approximately 77 million USD. In a month, that would be about 2 billion USD. If they take 0.2% off each trade as a fee, they are raking in about 4.6 million USD per month as revenue. Has he earned his Lambo? I bet he does. Does he care about a Lambo? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. I dunno.

Anyways, Jesse has created something great. He didn’t made his fortune only by investing I guess. He made it by being a grinder. A round of applause to him. (Btw, I know there are rumours saying Kraken is laying off people. I ain’t worried about that. The market is quieter lately. There isn’t the need for as many staff sitting around I suppose.)

Litecoin Founder — Charlie Lee | Sold off his Litecoins for about US$150 to 200 Million in Total

Not much introduction needed. “Litecoin is the silver and Bitcoin is the gold.” I still remember what he said to Bloomberg when it was 2013, where Bitcoin made its first appearance to the big media.
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He created Litecoin by varying the algorithm of the Bitcoin protocol, so that every transaction would go faster. “Lighter”, perhaps. As the name “Lite”- coin implies. Must say he knows something I as an average Joe don’t know.

First off, as a nobody, I dunno how to crack those algorithms. At those early days, everything blockchain-related sounded like a mystery. Secondly, I wouldn’t even have the guts to talk openly at Bloomberg, and be ridiculed as a moron.

Yeah, I ain’t kidding. In 2013, if you tell people cryptos are gonna take over fiat, people would look at you like you are a maniac. In fact, looking at you like you’re moronic was the socially acceptable thing to do at that time. And that’s exactly what the news reporter did to Charlie Lee in front of the worldwide audience at that time.

So, fast-forward to December 2017, Charlie said he would sell his entire Litecoin holdings, estimated to be of 500,000 of them, and worth approximately 150 million to 200 million USD in total. Litecoin was worth a high of about 300 USD at that time. (Now at about 54 USD.)

So he exited, and made a fortune. Not sure what’s the next project he is planning on. But for now, that sounded like a long journey to me. From 2013 to the end of 2017. That’s five years of hard-work.

As a nobody myself, I gotta say I don’t like how he cashed out and sold us all out. But if you look at that five years of constant drill he has gone through, while I was just sitting around, waiting for the magical moment to happen, I still gotta say the man has done some serious work and contributed a lot. So congrats to Mr. Lee. He still deserves that Lambo, fairly speaking.

Genesis Mining — Marco Streng, 29 Year-old Co-founder and CEO | Actual Revenue Undisclosed

Offering these mining contracts, Marco seems to be making money whether the market is in a uptrend or a downtrend. Reports said that he’s a mathematician and their company was founded in 2013. Now they have offices in many places like Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands and of course Iceland, where their mining farm is located. 

Gotta say it was a bold move back in 2013 to start this sort of company. Nobody knew if Bitcoin were to stay or to die out back in those days. It was all a gamble. It paid off in hindsight anyways. But that many years of grind isn’t easy either.

Serving millions of customers worldwide. Guys, you know this. We are a demanding bunch. We want everything, right? We must have been hard to serve. They did quite a satisfying job though.

There aren’t public figures reported on how much their revenue is. Or that I haven’t found it. But given how much Bitmex, Kraken, Litecoin, Bitmain and the like are worth/are making, I am sure their valuation is at least in the millions too, if not billions. 

Gratz. There’s their Lambo earned as well.

Bitmain — Jihan Wu and Those Men | IPO Estimated at $18 Billion USD

Their company was founded in 2013, when Jihan Wu wanted to create these ASIC mining rigs, more capable of mining Bitcoins. 5 years from then, they’re going for an IPO in Hong Kong, and that gives them a valuation of $18 billion.

Well, yes, I know some are disputing that because it looks like their IPO would have to be cancelled for a downtrend in sales, and a lack of pre-funding. But Bitmain is the typical story where when everyone is digging gold, you sell shovels. They are literally selling shovels — all these mining rigs to mine the gold.

You see, Bitmain is somewhat controversial. Jihan Wu was shilling Bitcoin Cash while everyone’s focusing on Bitcoin. And we all know that Bitcoin Cash ain’t no decentralised currency since they own it all. That extension of the will to domineer rather than to liberalise is disgusting. 

I don’t want to overly praise him. But he certainly can afford a Lambo, whether the market is up or down. Selling these shovels while everyone else is mining has made him a fortune. And I suppose building those ASIC things weren’t easy to start with anyways.

So Where’s The Lambo?

Alright, guys. If you want your Lambo really hard, and think you have super-human mental strength, do try it out like they did. For me, it sounds super tough. But looks like that’s the only way to secure a Lambo whether the market is up or down. 

(These are just my views. This article doesn’t represent the views of the website hosts.)