As the son of German billionaire and FinTech Titan Michael Gastauer, 22-year-old Aurelius Gastauer has grown up in an entrepreneurial environment. It’s to no surprise that his father’s success has rubbed off on Aurelius, who has had an interest in all things finance and technology since he was a child.
Growing up in Switzerland, Aurelius didn’t wait until his peers caught up before taking a step into the industry. By the age of 14, he was running an online hosting business after discovering a keen interest in IT networks and server technologies. He rented dedicated servers from large cloud providers such as AWS and sold cloud computing services to his friends, an idea that enabled them to host their online gaming community. Aurelius also helped manage his friends’ servers, giving him a small insight in what it takes to run a business at only 14.
By teaching himself four major programming languages before the age of 15, Aurelius was able to write software that allowed him to manage his server via a smartphone. Being a teenager and always on the go, this was imperative to the boy’s success, especially allowing him to access the server from school.
In 2015, Bitcoin had a value of around $200 USD. After gaining a respectable amount of money from his cloud hosting business, Aurelius invested these funds into BTC. As a result, Bitcoin became his preferred gift, with Christmas and birthdays dominated by the request for the cryptocurrency. With it still being in its infancy, Bitcoin wasn’t well known by Aurelius’s family members. One instance led to his grandparents walking into a Swiss store and asking to purchase Bitcoin for their grandson.
By 2017, the price of BTC had exceeded $19,000. Aurelius had managed to acquire 180 BTC, giving him a value of $3.4 million, an outstanding amount for anyone, nevermind a 16-year-old. Gaining a taste of finance and success, Aurelius moved from Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates at 19. It was there that he created his first company, a private equity investment firm.
Bitcoin reached an all time high value in November 2021, with one BTC exceeding over $65,000. This meant that the then 20-year-old had amassed more than $12 million, simply due to his continued investment in the cryptocurrency and his faith in its early days.
Feeling content in his portfolio, the young Gastauer planned his next steps: a large investment. By 21, Aurelius had put $2 million of his own funds into a European fintech firm. Less than two years later, this firm was acquired by an Irish financial institution and Aurelius’s investment had reached a valuation of $200 million.
As one of the heirs to the Gastauer family fortune, the young, self-made multi millionaire has paved the way for his own career in finance.
