Today, Charlie Shrem's life could be described as balanced. As a married man, who plans to have children soon, Shrem spends his time reorganizing his cryptocurrency portfolio to reduce risk and plan for the future.
This quiet and peaceful life can be a surprise to those who followed him. Characterized by extreme peaks and really low minimums, Shrem's rollercoaster life has been more volatile than Bitcoin's price.
Born in November 1989, Charlie Shrem grew up in a Sephardic Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York. The son of a jeweler and housewife, Shrem acclimates himself to managing money and understanding the value of a dollar at a young age.
Shrem remembered from his childhood that "My parents did not do anything in excess. They never said: here is a lot of money, do what you want ... I had to give an account for it ... If I spent my allowance they did not give me more. " This austerity, combined with the rapid increase in the price of his hobby, computers, forced him to find a solution.
Shrem showed a penchant for entrepreneurship when he was very young. Using his rapidly developing technological skills, he established himself as a local guru and began charging for his services.
"People had problems with the computer at home ... they did not know how to fix it. And I realized that I could provide a good service simply by being someone they called when they wanted, and charged ... $ 20 per hour. " Shrem was so successful in her new business that she bought her own car while still in high school, without the help of her parents.
Shrem's initial financial success was short-lived. Only one year later, when he turned 18, he received a credit card with a spending limit of US $ 6,000. Excited with his new available funds, Shrem surpassed them in a year, with a series of purchases that he characterized as "simply stupid things".
When he graduated, Shrem had accumulated a staggering US $ 10,000 debt. Although his father helped him restructure the payments, it took him about two years to recover financially. This would prove to be the first of several boom and bust cycles that were emblematic of his earlier hectic lifestyle.
Bitcoins instantly
While studying at Brooklyn College, Shrem began working to establish her financial independence. In an effort to get out of five figures of debt, Shrem diversified her portfolio and looked for new ways to generate income.
One of his first efforts was the creation of the website dailycheckout.com, where he sold reconditioned and used electronic equipment, pocketing US $ 600 per week.
Shrem's entrepreneurial spirit continued throughout his years at Brooklyn College. As a senior at the university in 2011, Shrem began investing in Bitcoin while still in his infancy, before he lost his digital assets after the failure of his storage device.
Because of this event, Shrem and his fellow Bitcoin enthusiast, Gareth Nelson, partnered to launch BitInstant, an e-commerce website designed to "help people convert dollars into Bitcoin."
BitInstant became an immediate success; At one point in time, BitInstant was responsible for approximately 30% of all Bitcoin transactions. Through this new company, Shrem acquired a significant amount of wealth, claiming that at 22 he had half a million dollars in his checking account. BitInstant marked a considerable increase in Shrem's life.
In addition to his business initiatives, Shrem was a founding member of the Bitcoin Foundation, along with other notable cryptocurrency advocates, such as Roger Ver.
The Bitcoin Foundation is a non-profit corporation dedicated to "standardization, protection and promotion ... of bitcoin cryptographic money for the benefit of users around the world".
In particular, Shrem was responsible for leading the associations and mergers of the Bitcoin Argentina Foundation, the Bitcoin Embassy of Canada and the Bitcoin Association of Australia, all in order to promote and disseminate knowledge about this cryptocurrency.
Inspired by the Linux Foundation, the Bitcoin Foundation carries out its mission through grants from private companies that use block chain technology.
In a short time, Shrem and BitInstant began to attract unwanted attention. Shrem was notified by his lawyers that a BitInstant user (Robert Faiella, alias "BTCking") was buying and launching bitcoins on Silk Road, the illegal online black market.
Following the advice of their legal representatives, BitInstant was closed on July 3, 2013. Because no one lost money, Shrem assumed that this was the end of the matter, and continued with other businesses.
Eight months later, Shrem's quality of life collapsed. After returning to the United States from a convention in Amsterdam, Shrem landed at JFK airport, only to find DEA agents and the IRS waiting for his arrival.
The authorities blamed Shrem directly for Faiella's plan, and the following morning, he was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, failure to file a suspicious activity report and operate a money transfer company without a license.
In total, one of the first crypto-millionaires known, was facing 25 years in prison. Finally, he ended up serving a year in prison and was released in June 2016.
A new beginning
Charlie Shrem left prison as a changed man. After his departure, he did not return immediately to his previous lifestyle. Shrem recalls: "I did not really turn on a computer for two months ... I did not turn on my iPhone, not even another cell phone and it was weird ... I was not ready." Instead, he took a discreet job in rural Pennsylvania, washing dishes for eight dollars an hour.
Resident currently in Sarasota, Florida, the quiet life of Charlie Shrem is far from the chaos of his beginnings in Brooklyn. With a new perspective on things, now it is more reflective and well-founded.
Speaking of his wealth, the person who once had half a million in a checking account said ... "I have to be smart. I get married, we'll have children eventually, I can not, you know, I can not speculate with my rent. "
Today, Charlie Shrem deals with a series of new companies. In October of 2017, he founded CryptoIQ right where he lives. The mission of CryptoIQ and Shrem is to "empower people by providing access to the world of crypto".
With renewed enthusiasm, he continues to advocate for a broader adoption of Bitcoin.