From Homeless to Encryption Billionaire: Luca Netz's Extraordinary Rise

At 16 years old, Luca Netz was already thinking about how to turn a startup into a billion-dollar company while packing boxes at the Ring distribution center. This warehouse job gave him firsthand experience of how a company truly creates wealth, and this lesson would prove invaluable later on.

Nitz's childhood was quite tumultuous. He and his mother were homeless for a long time, drifting from place to place. This experience cultivated his adaptability and ability to seize opportunities. In high school, he started reselling food on campus to make money, showcasing his early entrepreneurial spirit.

At the age of 16, Nez dropped out of high school and found a job at Ring. Although he was only responsible for packing and processing orders, he closely followed the company's development process and learned about the operations of startups. He witnessed firsthand the entire process of Ring going from being obscure to being acquired by Amazon for $1 billion.

During his time at Ring, Nitz discovered a business opportunity in hip-hop culture: fans had difficulty distinguishing between real and fake jewelry. He began selling similar-looking but inexpensive replicas and adopted a social media marketing strategy. This simple idea allowed him to achieve a million-dollar income by the age of 18 and eventually sell the business for $8 million.

With funding, Nez began to venture into other fields. He served as the Chief Marketing Officer for the famous clothing brand Von Dutch and also invested in and led the marketing efforts for the toy company Gel Blaster. These experiences laid the foundation for his future success.

At the beginning of 2022, Nitz made a bold decision: to acquire the struggling Pudgy Penguins NFT project for $2.5 million. Although the NFT market was about to enter a bear market at that time, he saw the potential to create a lasting brand.

Under the leadership of Nez, Pudgy Penguins is no longer limited to digital collectibles. He has established diverse revenue sources, including physical products, licensing deals, and content creation. This strategy has achieved remarkable success, and Pudgy Penguins toys are now available in several major retail stores, with annual revenue exceeding $10 million.

In December 2024, Nez issued the PENGU token on the Solana chain, which is one of the largest airdrops on the chain. Although it sparked some controversy, this move significantly raised the project's profile. By mid-2025, the market capitalization of the PENGU token had exceeded $2.5 billion.

The latest project from Nitz is Abstract, a user-friendly blockchain platform designed to eliminate the barriers to using encryption technology. Its goal is to create an engaging and easy-to-use ecosystem that allows people to utilize blockchain technology without even realizing it.

At the age of 25, Netz had already become one of the most influential figures in the encryption industry. His success stems from a unique perspective: seamlessly integrating digital and physical, community and business, innovation and accessibility. Netz is not looking to disrupt existing industries, but to enable them to communicate and merge with each other.

The story of Nez reveals a new business model: transforming NFT holders into stakeholders of the brand, creating unprecedented synergies. His vision is not limited to short-term gains but looks towards development in the coming decades.

Luca Nets' rise is not just a story of commercial success; it is also an inspiration about innovation, adaptation, and perseverance. He transformed his experiences of adversity into an advantage, bridging the gap between traditional industries and emerging technologies, pointing the way to a new future for the encryption industry.