I was a £70-a-day builder after teachers wrote me off at school – now I’m a crypto millionaire on £500k a year
A BUILDER claims he's gone from earning £70-a-day to becoming a crypto multi-millionaire from his bedroom.
Scott Ryder, 34, from Braintree, Essex, was branded an “academic failure” by teachers who said he’d never amount to anything.
But he’s had the last laugh as he says he's now worth more than £5million and is raking in over £500,000-a-year as a crypto trader.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Scott says: “My teachers thought that because I wasn’t academic and a straight A* student, I’d end up in a dead-end job on a minimum wage.
"But they couldn't have been more wrong. I've built a successful business up from nothing by myself and I couldn't be more proud.
"I have an eight-bedroom mansion in Essex and drive an Audi RX8 and a Bentley.
"I love spoiling my girlfriend Natasha. We go on multiple holidays a year - everywhere from the Grand Canyon and Dubai to Thailand. My teachers were wrong."
While Scott has enjoyed success, anyone thinking of investing in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency should be very careful as their values are incredibly unpredictable, with the ability to plummet as quickly as they shoot up.
Like with all cryptocurrencies, this means that if you choose to invest, you can lose your money if the value drops.
Scott says the only subject he had any interest in at school was maths because of his life-long fascination with the stock market.
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The risks of buying with cryptocurrencies
Investing and making a purchase in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin is risky .
Their value is highly volatile and City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority has warned investors should be prepared to lose all their money.
Investing in cryptocurrencies is not a guaranteed way to make money.
You should also think carefully about making purchases with a cryptocurrency.
For example, Bitcoin has had wild price fluctuations in recent months and the price can change on an almost hourly basis.
The price of a Bitcoin was at $40,258 on January 9, according to Coindesk, but fell to $34,214 just three days later.
That's a 15% drop.
These price swings are risky for a business as you could sell an item for a Bitcoin at one price and the value may drop soon after, leaving you with less money from a sale.
Similarly, the price of Bitcoin has soared by more than 21% since the start of this week so it can be hard for a shopper to get an accurate idea of the price of an item if its value changes on a daily basis.
“As a kid from a working class background my options were limited,” he explains. “After school I initially got a job as a labourer on building sites.
“It never suited me. I always wanted to be working as a trader at a top City firm, but it wasn’t that easy to get into.
“I scraped Cs in my GCSEs and landed an apprenticeship after school as a carpenter but I never liked it and I wasn’t very good at it.
“Too many people are written off because they don’t fit into the mould of going to university and getting on a big company’s graduate scheme.
"But crypto is different, anyone can make a success out of it, regardless of your opportunities or background."
Life-changing trip
After three years Scott jacked in his carpenter job and went on a long break to Ibiza for six months.
It was during this trip that Scott, who lives with Natasha, 30, met a group of brokers who changed his outlook on life.
"It made me realise what was possible," he explains. "They were just ordinary guys like me - they didn't have PHDs or loads of letters after their names. They worked hard, believed in themselves and took chances."
In 2009, when he was 21, he came back and landed a job as a junior broker at Oakmount and Partners Ltd.
I'd always dreamed of being a broker and working in finance but I never knew it was possible
Scott Ryder
"I didn't have any specific qualifications," he admits. "But I'd been recommended for the position by the lads I'd met in Ibiza.
"They saw that I was enthusiastic and had life experience. It's hard graft working on a building site, and you have to put up with the banter and give as good as you get.
"It's the same on the trading floor, it's fast-paced and a lot of banter. You have to be the sort of character who doesn't get fazed by knockbacks."
Fast-tracked
Within six months Scott was closing deals and had been promoted to head of sales at the firm - putting him in charge of a team of 15 people.
He was also raking in a six-figure salary - affording him a lifestyle that he previously could only dream of, travelling around the world and buying designer clothes.
Having established a successful career as a trader, after three and a half years Scott landed a job as a director at Investex Global.
He was trading oil but lost a lot of money when the price crashed in 2014, when he was 26. He lost his job and had to move back into his parents' house - where he stayed for six months.
“It was a huge setback,” he admits. “But I was determined not to give up.”
Branching out to bitcoin
Despite feeling pressured to get a “normal job”, Scott started exploring cryptocurrency - still in its infancy at the time.
A cryptocurrency is a digital-only token which uses cryptography to regulate how the tokens are created, how they’re traded, and how secure they are, without being a managing central bank.
While living at his parents', Scott began running an exchange where people could buy and sell bitcoin, then priced around £228 each.
He earned a small commission on each transaction and slowly built his business.
Scott says: "Despite its volatility, I knew that it was a growing sector and branched out to create my own firm before launching my own crypto called Lucky Block last November."
Speaking about the burgeoning crypto industry, he adds: “Crypto is here to stay and central banks need to wake up to that.
“There have already been steps towards recognising it but there needs to be much more acceptance and regulation.
Scott says if you want to get into trading you need to do your research.
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"Don't expect to be a millionaire overnight," he continues. "It takes years to master any trade. But it is still is an emerging market and there is a lot of room for it to grow. This means there's a lot of money for the right people to make.
"That could be you if you work hard, take your chance and believe in yourself."
