A set of identical twins of Nigerian descent who had previously engaged in crime and gangster living in a South London suburb of Brockley are now worth £41 million in cryptocurrency.
The twin brothers Sam and Steve Nico Williams aged 38, launched the Populous (PPT) cryptocurrency token which currently stands as the 52nd most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization. The family consisting of a chef mother and accountant father had moved to the United Kingdom from Nigeria and lived in Brockley were they had watched their parents struggle over long hours to provide for family needs.
While speaking about their early years and his past ordeal with crime, Steve said;
as we struggled to feed and fend, I fell into the wrong crowd for a while and 12 years ago was convicted of obtaining money by deception. When I got out, it was a major wake-up call and I took plenty of time to think about what I was going to do with my life. I definitely knew I had to turn my life around and work to achieve a good life for me and my family, as well as give back to the youths and inspire them to create positive opportunities.
Steve who is described as the brains behind Populous is a commercial data expert and studied a GNVQ in Advanced Business at Crofton comprehensive School in Lewisham; while Sam excelled at computer programming at the same school’s sixth form.
After leaving school, the brothers had tried a few ventures like launching a lifestyle and financial-research data magazine before moving on to cryptocurrency. They worked actively for four years utilizing their mum’s kitchen table in Brockley to build the blockchain code for their tokens and were greatly surprised by the huge success of the Populous (PPT) token after Steve put the token on the market in June 2017.
According to their valuation on its launch, they predicted it might raise a few thousand pounds, but 24 hours later they were shocked to have amassed assets worth 1.85 million in Ethereum digital currency. For Sam, the success of Populous exceeded all expectations and has in turn completely changed their lifestyle in the past year.
The brothers have so far released 37 million PPT tokens to enable them have funds to develop the coin further and retained 16 million PPT tokens currently valued at $3.452 per coin on the CoinMarketCap table which hence, makes their current net worth about £41.76 million from a previous £1 billion when the coin hit an all time high of $68.91; before the general coin market dip. They are said to also own stakes in a few other businesses like Michelin-starred Restaurant Story in London and London estate agency chain.
The brothers rise to affluence had them become buddies with well known and wealthy celebs, notably rich boxer Floyd Mayweather and top rapper 50 Cent. They have also given back and contributed to their Alma mater with 22 percent of pupils enjoying free meals and exam passes placed below the national average.
The Populous cryptocuurency token PPT developed by the William brothers, is an invoice discounting platform which helps small and medium scale businesses with cash flow problems; to raise finance against invoices from the crypto community. It is believed that all of its early investors have surely made a fortune.
