Early life
Yousuf was born in Zakho, Iraqi Kurdistan on April 9, 2000. [11] His father was part of the Peshmerga and fled the country to Switzerland before Yousuf was born. Three years later his mother left the country, together with her three sons. [12] They arrived in Neuenburg, Switzerland, in 2003 where his father had relocated. [13] [14] In 2004, the family was granted refugee status and moved to Ipsach. Yousuf has five younger siblings who were born in Switzerland. [15] In his early years, he showed an interest in the field of finance, particularly on Bitcoin and international money transfers. [16] This interest was partly influenced by difficulties his family faced in transferring money to relatives abroad, which led him to explore alternative financial systems such as cryptocurrencies. [17] [18]
In 2017 he started an apprenticeship at the Eidgenössische Hochschulinstitut für Berufsbildung in Zollikofen. He finished his apprenticeship with a real estate company in Bern. [19]
Career
At the age of 11, Yousuf sold some of his toys to acquire funds to invest in Bitcoin. With this initial investment, he purchased 10 Bitcoins at a price of €15 and continued to trade in the cryptocurrency. [12] [13] In 2012, he acquired 1000 Bitcoins at a rate of €11,126. In 2016, Yousuf invested in Ethereum, buying 16,000 units at a total cost of €134,000. [15] Yousuf became a multi-millionaire through his cryptocurrency trades, [13] [14] and is considered the youngest Swiss self-made millionaire. [20]
In early 2021, Yousuf founded the Dohrnii Foundation to oversee the development of his cryptocurrency software and own cryptocurrency tokens. [21] The Dohrnii project was presented as an initiative intended to provide financial education through a mobile application and its own cryptocurrency. [22] The project included plans for an online learning platform and a digital marketplace in which services and products could be accessed or exchanged using the DHN token. [23] An initial coin offering (ICO) was conducted to support the development of the platform and its associated ecosystem. [24] Later that year, in November 2021, he was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for the DACH region. [25]
In late 2021, Yousuf became chief executive officer and a shareholder of Crowdlitoken (Crowdli AG), a Liechtenstein-based fintech company focused on tokenised real-estate investments. [26] [27] The company's stated aim was to enable investors to gain exposure to selected properties through blockchain-based digital securities, with participation possible from relatively small amounts (reported as from CHF 100). [28] According to media reports, Yousuf's role included operational leadership and the further development of the platform's investment concept in connection with the Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority (FMA). [29]
In February 2022, Swiss public broadcaster SRF published an investigative report concerning Yousuf's business activities. [30] Yousuf subsequently filed a criminal complaint for defamation against two SRF journalists. [30] The Zurich-Limmat public prosecutor initially discontinued the proceedings in May 2023, concluding that no legal violation had occurred. [30] [31] Following an appeal, the Zurich cantonal high court returned the case to prosecutors, stating that the journalists had not provided sufficient exculpatory evidence. [32] [30] The prosecution later issued summary penalty orders for defamation against the two journalists. [30] [33] SRF accepted the penalty orders and stated that it did not contest them in order to protect confidential journalistic sources. [30] In 2025, Yousuf and SRF reached an out-of-court settlement concerning the disputed reporting. [34] [35] According to media reports, SRF agreed to remove the contested article and issued an apology in connection with a personality rights violation identified in the penalty orders. [34] Both parties agreed not to pursue further legal claims relating to the matter. [34] The settlement included a confidentiality clause. Yousuf later publicly disclosed the agreement, stating that he considered transparency to be in the public interest. [35]
In early 2022, Yousuf sponsored FC Schaffhausen at the Wefox-Arena. [36] Yousuf's involvements in cryptocurrency have drawn the attention of the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. [37] [38] In May 2022, the Dohrnii Foundation was investigated for engaging in various regulated activities, including acting as a securities firm, without obtaining the required FINMA authorization. [39] [40] According to FINMA's enforcement report published in May 2023, the Dohrnii Foundation had sold DHN tokens to approximately 500 private individuals for a total of roughly €3 million through its ICO, while Yousuf personally sold tokens to around 60 individuals for approximately CHF 3.2 million. [41] He resigned as CEO in February 2023, [42] and following enforcement proceedings by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, the Dohrnii Foundation was dissolved in June 2023. [43]
Yousuf's autobiography was published on October 24, 2022. [44] [45] In December 2022, Yousuf participated in the ARD documentary titled 'Money Maker', [46] which explored his journey from a refugee child in Kurdistan to becoming a multimillionaire through cryptocurrency investments in Switzerland. [47] [48] As of 2023 he is under criminal investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Canton of Bern. [49]
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