According to investor Berat Hoti, becoming a millionaire with a capital of $10,000 is no problem – if you have a good strategy. He says it’s simply important to get started. In our interview, he explains the steps that led him to success.
Mr. Hoti, you turned Few Thousand Dollars into almost a million in five years and built a successful company. What was the driving force behind this topic and this career?
It was by chance that I got started with crypto in 2017. The trigger was a bold claim of John McAfee, who at the time said that 1 Bitcoin will be worth a Million Dollars in a few years. I was so excited by the whole thing that I immediately opened a crypto account. I Invested in a few Coins, and on my first day of trading, my performance was already up by more than 50 percent. Then, in the evening, I looked at my account and saw how much profit was possible with a single coin in a single day. I thought to myself, if it’s that easy to make money on the crypto market, then of course I want to do it too. I then began to delve into the subject of the crypto market and bitcoin, gradually acquiring more and more knowledge. It didn’t all go uphill overnight; there were many ups and downs until I recognized a system in the market and was able to use it for myself.
In 2020, I began trading full-time, placing an average of 2 trades a day. Within just five years, by the end of 2024, I had earned more than 500k in profit. It was pretty obvious that this would later increase. Alongside trading, investing became increasingly interesting as my capital continued to grow and I wanted to diversify. About 2 years ago, I first felt the urge to pass on my knowledge. I completed training as a trainer and coach and spend more than €40,000 a year on continuing education to better communicate my knowledge and inspire as many people as possible about the crypto market, whether as traders or investors. This was also the starting point for building the company. Two years ago, I started myself; today, our company employs ten people, and the number is growing.
Did a long-term strategy lead to your current success, or did you proceed step by step?
In 7 years as a trader, I’ve developed several successful strategies that average a performance of around few percent per week. As an investor, however, I’ve relied on long-term strategies, even though long-term strategies are always a matter of definition: My investment horizon is between four weeks and a maximum of five months. None of the strategies I use in the investment sector have a horizon of 20 or 30 months. Why? This is simply due to the performance achieved by combining various medium- and long-term strategies. A buy-and-hold strategy, for example, yields an average of 20 to 30 percent. My goal, however, has always been to achieve at least 100 percent performance per year, and to do so in a way that is replicable, so that anyone can trade this strategy retrospectively.
Even with a sophisticated strategy, you have to expect losses; the market is often volatile, but are you afraid of making a major strategy mistake?
Volatility on the crypto markets is part of everyday business. Crises occur again and again, and each crisis brings a new, major opportunity for us investors and also for traders. As an investor, you benefit from these crises if you have a good strategy. In the end, it’s like real life: It’s always about buying low and selling high. This means that the more volatile the market, the better performance we can achieve with a good strategy. Am I afraid of making a major strategic mistake? No. I have been trading on the crypto market for more than 5 years and have experienced more than seven major crises during this time, during which the markets fell by up to 70 percent and our average investment performance was over 50 percent. Even in crisis years, and this is what makes it special, we have emerged positively in almost every case. However, it is still important to pursue different strategies and not put all our eggs in one basket, but also to diversify your investments.
What strategies are needed for a million-dollar portfolio?
In the end, it only comes down to three things: If we want to build a million-dollar portfolio, we need money. The second is an extremely good and profitable strategy. The third component is time. Time is the most underestimated tool here, because it usually depends on how much time I actually have. Using the time factor, I can achieve any goal with the compound interest effect. For example: I invest 10,000 dollars at a 6 percent return. This is a simple buy-and-hold strategy with which I can triple my capital in 20 years. If we instead have an interest rate of 12 percent, which is already a very decent strategy, then the capital almost increases tenfold. The interest rate doubles, but the compound interest effect means an incredibly much more capital comes out at the end of the day – from three to ten times as much. With a million-dollar portfolio strategy with a performance of more than 25 percent, you can achieve almost a million euros in 20 years. If you ask someone whether it’s possible to achieve such a sum with €10,000 starting capital, you’ll rarely hear a “yes,” because our brains can’t think exponentially. The three most important things we need to build a million-dollar portfolio are money, a good strategy, and time.
What can our readers do today to take a step further on their path to financial freedom?
It’s important to be aware of what financial freedom truly means. What goals and visions do I have? Do I perhaps simply want to work less or retire earlier? Do I want to get involved in social projects? Do I want more time for my hobbies or finally have enough time to travel? Perhaps I would also like to buy a motorhome so that I not only have financial freedom, but can live wherever I want, whenever I want, and can make my own decisions.
It’s important to be clear about what steps I want to take next, for example, taking crypto: How much capital do I have? How much return can I achieve year after year with a good strategy? How much additional capital can I save to reach my goal faster? With good investment strategies, it’s no problem to achieve double-digit returns or more year after year. But it’s important to get started and make the decision to achieve financial freedom now.
