I recently came across a quite fascinating story that shows how wild the crypto world can be. There is this guy Yousuf, who basically became a multimillionaire out of nowhere – and all without traditional financial education. Dadvan Yousuf was born in 2000 in Iraqi Kurdistan, his family fled to Switzerland in 2003 and received refugee status there. But instead of accepting this situation, he simply took action at a young age. At eleven years old, he sold toys to buy his first 10 Bitcoins for about 15 euros. Crazy, right? That was in 2012, when he then acquired 1,000 Bitcoins at a rate of around 11,000 euros. Four years later, he jumped on Ethereum and secured 16,000 units for about 134,000 euros. Dadvan Yousuf became the youngest self-taught billionaire in Switzerland – at least according to his claims. In 2021, he even made it onto Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list, then at 21 years old. His fortune was estimated at around 270 million Swiss francs. But here’s where the story gets interesting. Yousuf founded the Dohrnii Foundation and allegedly developed an algorithm for automated cryptocurrency transactions. He also acquired the majority of Crowdlitoken, a Liechtenstein startup for real estate tokenization, which was approved by FINMA. Then came 2022 and the crash. Critical press articles, especially from SRF Investigativ, accused him of financial irregularities. Yousuf sued the journalists for defamation. In August 2024, the Zurich High Court ruled in favor of Yousuf – the journalists could not substantiate their claims. That was a historic moment for SRF, the first conviction against their journalists. In May 2022, FINMA investigated the Dohrnii Foundation because it was conducting regulated activities without permission. Yousuf stepped down as CEO, and the foundation was dissolved in June 2023. Since 2023, there has also been a criminal investigation by the authorities of the Canton of Bern. The whole story shows how complex regulation in the crypto space still is. Someone like Dadvan Yousuf can be, on one hand, a success story – a refugee who became a millionaire through crypto investments – but on the other hand, also face serious regulatory problems. This is definitely a story to keep an eye on when thinking about the future of cryptocurrencies and their regulation.