Eddy Zillan, 18, invested his entire savings into cryptocurrencies when he was 15 years old and says he has made over $1 million in profits.
Zillan has spent the past three years studying cryptocurrencies and now offers his services as a cryptocurrency consultant.
When Eddy Zillan started trading in cryptocurrencies three years ago, he was 15 — too young to open an account on the trading platform Coinbase, which requires its users to be at least 18 years old.
But Zillan glossed over the site's terms of agreement and opened an account on Coinbase and another trading platform called Kraken, cautiously purchasing $100 worth of the cryptocurrency ether.
Zillan says he was initially skeptical of putting his money into the fledgling cryptocurrency market, which he'd first heard about in reference to the now defunct drug-trading website Silk Road. When Zillan began investing in 2015, there were few credible resources offering advice on how to invest in cryptocurrencies.
"At the time I invested, there were no YouTubers, there were no investors, there was no one I could learn from," Zillan said in an interview with Business Insider. "There were no books or mentors, and it was really hard to teach myself a formal education in that field."
When Zillan checked his accounts a few hours after investing his first $100, he found he'd already made $10. Though it may not sound like much, Zillan says he was floored.
"I thought: 'Wow, I just made a 10% return in a day. That's crazy,'" he said.
The next day, Zillan put in more cash. This time, it was $1,000.
A week later, he added $5,000, and the week after that another $6,000.
Before long, Zillan had invested a total of just over $12,000, the entirety of his savings from teaching tennis lessons, along with a tidy nest egg he'd received from gifts and his bar mitzvah a few years earlier.
"I risked everything," he said.
At first, Zillan's parents had mixed feelings about their son's interest in digital currencies. While his mother approved, his father cautioned against what he considered to be an extremely risky venture.
Meanwhile, Zillan's skepticism was evaporating by the day.
Within the first few months, his returns had begun to skyrocket. As his gains inched higher, Zillan was reading about cryptocurrencies obsessively, sometimes spending hours a day on cryptocurrency forums or chatting with other investors online. Soon, he was dabbling in alternate cryptocurrencies — also known as altcoins — and day trading.
In one short year, Zillan's initial investment had snowballed. He says his entire cryptocurrency portfolio had tallied a staggering $350,000.