When we talk about crypto and money, the conversation tends to shift towards the overall market cap of specific tokens or all-time high values. One thing that is also worth looking at is how many individual entrepreneurs are making their fortunes with cryptocurrency.
Besides the initial Bitcoin investors who famously became millionaires from their tokens, many businesspeople have set up ventures that leverage crypto. One of these is Edward Craven, the Australian entrepreneur who co-founded the online casino Stake.com and the live-streaming platform Kick.
With a fortune of $1.1 billion, he is one of the most prolific crypto entrepreneurs in the space today. But how did he make his fortune and how does crypto come into the mix?
Edward Craven History
Edward Craven was born in 1995 in Sydney, Australia and took up an interest in tech and crypto from a young age. When he was just 18 years old in 2013, he launched a crypto-focused online dice game called Primedice.
The game turned out to be a hit and was a glimpse of what was to come in terms of Craven’s career. A few years later, he teamed up with another entrepreneur called Bijan Tehrani to create Easygo, an online casino game company. By 2017, they had launched Stake.com, an online betting site that allowed users to play classic casino games like poker and blackjack with cryptocurrency.
Crypto Betting
It is no secret that a big part of Craven’s wealth is tied to crypto betting. This success is also tied to good business timing and developments in the wider market. At the time that Craven launched Stake.com and his other crypto betting businesses, digital assets like Bitcoin were just becoming mainstream.
While they had been very niche for years, cryptos were being more widely used by the mid-2010s and part of this use was tied to gambling. The popularity of crypto in online gambling meant that many brand new options of casinos that accept crypto only, or crypto as well as fiat, were popping up and becoming very profitable. By entering the space at just the right time, Craven was able to corner the market on crypto gambling.
Stake.com has retained much of its popularity over the years, securing partnerships with the likes of Everton FC, Watford FC, and even the rapper Drake.
Live-Streaming
But not all of Craven’s fortune has come from cryptocurrency betting. There is also Kick, the live-streaming platform he launched in 2022. Kick is a direct competitor to Twitch and just like Craven’s crypto ventures, came at just the right time.
Creators had been frustrated with Twitch for a long time and Kick was able to establish itself by luring away such major talent as xQc and Amouranth with exclusive contracts.
This has quickly put Kick on the map and made it very profitable. Kick is also tied in with Stake.com so each site drives traffic and engagement to the other. These have, inevitably, contributed to Craven’s massive fortune that shows no signs of dropping soon.
