Carl Runefelt, a 29-year-old crypto entrepreneur and influencer, has grown a huge following on social media by flaunting his uber-rich lifestyle that allegedly came from his successful investments. Extravagant sports cars and yachts, luxurious apartments, and expensive watches fill his Instagram and YouTube, painting with broad strokes an archetypal crypto success story. However, a closer examination raises questions about the veracity of his claims and the real figures of his net worth.
The origin story of Carl Runefelt
Carl Runefelt was born on September 5, 1994 (29 years old at the time of writing) in Stockholm, Sweden. According to Runefelt, he was born clinically dead with no heartbeat and it took eleven minutes before doctors were able to resuscitate him. He dropped out of school at the age of 17 due to learning difficulties caused by ADHD and, in his own words, didn’t do anything productive for a couple of years but partied, took drugs, and consumed alcohol. At some point, Carl’s parents, concerned about his lack of direction, forced him to take a job at the grocery store, but he didn’t last long as he always felt he was ‘supposed to do something big.’ Although Runefelt’s parents weren’t poor, in his words, they never gave him any money.
“One day, I just decided that I’m going to become incredibly wealthy, incredibly rich, incredibly successful… I’m going to be the most extraordinary version of myself,” Runefelt shared in his podcast appearance.
The path to riches for the crypto entrepreneur started with visualizing the dream life, as he focused intensely on the luxuries he wanted to consume—private jets, yachts, bugattis, and exotic travel destinations. Runefelt’s success formula also included buying second-hand Louboutin shoes that retailed for $1,200, browsing the yachts listed for sale, and visiting Gucci and Louis Vuitton stores to get a taste of a lifestyle he aspired to.
The coworkers at the grocery store, with whom Runefelt shared his billionaire aspirations, reacted with predictable skepticism. “I think, from the public perception, people would think I’m crazy,” he admitted. The aspiring crypto entrepreneur also mentioned telling all his coworkers about Bitcoin and urging them to buy it almost every day.
As sketchy as it may sound, Runefelt does indeed credit positive thinking—specifically the spiritual belief called ‘the law of attraction,’ which is based on the idea that optimistic thoughts bring prosperity and happiness—for much of his financial success.
While working in the grocery store, Runefelt became interested in the global financial system and started putting a portion of his $1,500 monthly paycheck into physical gold and silver, which he viewed as a way to escape the control of banks. He also tried a couple of online hustles, such as dropshipping, printed t-shirt sales, and Amazon FBA, but none of these worked out as Runefelt realized he was too late to make a bank.
After failed attempts to venture into e-commerce, which Runefelt says taught him a lot about the reality of entrepreneurship, he started his YouTube channel and bought $50 worth of Bitcoin for the first time at around $4,300. His channel quickly grew in popularity, so just after 6 months Runefelt started earning good money from monetization, sponsorships, and referral links, making around $3,000-$10,000 monthly, which allowed him to quit his day job. At the time, he already was a moderately successful trader, although his income at the time didn’t allow him to generate a big enough cash flow that Runefelt believes is crucial for building generational wealth.
While Runefelt was mostly focused on Bitcoin, he says he was never exclusive to it, hopping on whatever altcoin he believed had the potential for explosive growth. A year later, being a regular crypto conference goer, Runefelt realized that there was no practical sense for him to stay in Sweden and relocated to Dubai. Around the same time, he started The Moon Group, a venture capital firm that invested in around 400 web3 startups, usually in exchange for a certain allocation of pre-sale tokens. According to Runefelt, he usually invests between $50,000 and $200,000 in each project.
In June 2021, Runefelt founded the web3 job board Cryptojobs.com. At the time of writing, the portal had around 40,000 monthly visitors, with a global rank of 643,700 and a category rank of 8,000 as per Similarweb.
Carl Runefelt’s net worth
Given the above income streams of Carl Runefelt, what can possibly be his real net worth? On numerous occasions, Runefelt referred to himself as a ‘Bitcoin billionaire,’ but even the most superficial analysis raises questions about the accuracy of his claim. It also doesn’t help that he can’t be found on any of the publicly available rankings of the world’s richest people, such as the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, and Runefelt’s name remains largely unknown to the broader crypto community.
First of all, while investing in crypto assets during periods of market downturns can be extremely lucrative when the bull trend finally kicks in, it would be impossible for Runefelt to make a billion from betting on Bitcoin alone, unless he invested millions, which would contradict his narration of starting from the bottom.
According to Runefelt, he started investing in Bitcoin in 2017 at a $4,300 price, which corresponds to the end of March 2017. Assuming that he put $5,000—a generous assumption since he probably didn’t earn that much at the beginning of his journey when BTC was at its lowest and therefore had the highest ROI—in Bitcoin every month for seven years, he would have made $3.2 million at a 639% appreciation of the asset. While such returns are undoubtedly impressive, they’re still nowhere close to the billions that Runefelt claims to have made.
Second, Runefelt claims to have invested between $50,000 and $200,000 in over 400 web3 startups. According to Investopedia, an average investor earns returns of 179% from the ICO price to the first day’s opening market price. Assuming an average figure of $125,000 per project, that would net Runefelt around $90 million from these investments, which still falls short of the billion-dollar claim.
Finally, a non-negligible portion of Runefelt’s income comes from his portal cryptojobs.com and various digital gigs such as merchandise sales, monetization of his YouTube and TikTok, and affiliate marketing.
Given the figures above and assuming they are true, Carl Runefelt’s real net worth may be close to $100 million. While such wealth would be undoubtedly life-changing for literally anyone, it’s still much less than the self-described “Bitcoin billionaire” claims to have. It’s worth noting also that our estimates depended on some generous assumptions, so the actual state of Runefelt’s net worth is probably only known to himself and his close circle. After all, in crypto opportunities tend to come and go fast, so any wealth tied up in volatile digital assets would fluctuate significantly depending on the current cycle.
Carl Runefelt on social media
As an influencer, Carl Runefelt is active on multiple social media platforms, where he often posts content about his luxury lifestyle and shares his insights into cryptocurrency and personal finance. He has a notable presence on YouTube, which is the platform where Runefelt first started as a crypto influencer. At the time of writing, the follower count on Carl Runefelt’s social media is as follows:
- YouTube: 331k on Carl Runefelt Vlogs and 611k on The Moon
- Instagram: 250k on @carlrunefelt and 24k on @themoon
- TikTok: 294k on @carlrunefelt and 2.3m on @moon
- Twitter: 1.3m on @TheMoonCarl
- CoinMarketCap: 1.2k on @TheMoon
Philanthropy and Formula 2 sponsorship
In 2022, Carl Runefelt entered into a multi-million sponsorship agreement with Ralph Boschung, a Swiss racing driver competing in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, and Campos Racing, the motor racing team Boschung was a part of. Through the deal, Runefelt promoted the mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrencies as the sponsorship payment was settled in crypto. When Boschung announced his retirement from racing in February 2024, the crypto entrepreneur acquired a Formula 2 car as a tribute to the two-year partnership coming to an end. Having successfully competed in the 2022 and 2023 F2 seasons, the car is now permanently exhibited inside Carl’s corporate office located on the 40th floor of the Media One Tower in Dubai. Throughout the two F2 seasons, the car featured a QR code to receive donations for charity organizations supporting children with Down Syndrome.
Carl Runefelt is known for actively donating to charities supporting children with Down syndrome and other disabilities, which stems from a deep personal connection—he has a little brother who lives with the syndrome. According to Runefelt, his brother’s condition has long been an uphill battle for his family, as he was also born with a severe heart condition and later was diagnosed with cancer two times.
Bottom line
The dizzying rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has created a group of crypto millionaires, all young, flashy, and carefree, who can often be seen celebrating their wealth partying on luxury yachts or riding their expensive Lambos into the sunset. The life-changing fortunes flaunted on social media paint a picture of easy and achievable success, pulling in aspiring investors like a magnet. Yet it’s worth keeping in mind that what is demonstrated on the screen can be greatly exaggerated, painting a picture that is very different from the objective reality. The ostentatious display of wealth, therefore, should be viewed with a critical eye, and crypto influencers taken with a grain of salt. After all, the influencers’ job is to influence you, and integrity is not always included.
This article was originally Posted on Coinpaper.com
