2 Unlikely Success Stories Caused By Cryptocurrency Investments

by Andrew McGuinness     jul. 16, 2019

In 2009 when the first form of cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was created, it was hard to tell whether or not it would be worth an investment. Not only did no one know about the nature of cryptocurrencies, mining, etc., no one would have been able to predict the amount of benefits it would someday have to offer.

To think that fiat currencies would be challenged at any point within our lifetime sounded like complete nonsense. How in the world would anything be able to grow to be as big as the currency we have been using since what feels like the beginning of time? How would any type of currency be able to expand to that level of greatness within a few years? Not even its earliest investors would have been able to answer these questions, nor would they have ever been able to predict the series of events that led to Bitcoin’s success. The following two investors have had very unexpected success stories since choosing to invest in Bitcoin within relatively early stages.

  1. Erik Finman

In 2012, very shortly before the dramatic rise of Bitcoin in 2013, then 15 year old Erik Finman decided to invest in the cryptocurrency. The idea that any teenager would have the mind to invest in anything, let alone something that would become ridiculously profitable, is astounding on its own. The idea came to Erik Finman’s mind upon receiving an easter gift of $1000 from his grandmother.

Most teenagers would probably consider buying a new wardrobe, video games, the list goes on. However, spending about an eighth of that sum would probably be enough before realizing that there are so many better ways to make use of that much money. That is exactly what teenager Erik Finman thought to himself before deciding to invest his grandmother’s gift. He actually did not spend any of it on himself, rather, he invested all $1000 of his easter earnings on Bitcoin.

In only twelve months, his one grand had suddenly become one-hundred grand. $100,000 dollars worth of Bitcoin owned by a 16 year old boy. As soon as his Bitcoins reached these heights, he decided to sell them and start his own website called Botangle.com. Botangle is a website that provides video tutoring services to students of all types, from all walks of life. At such a young age, this incredible profit was definitely not what Erik had in mind when first investing.

2. Olaf Carlson Wee

At 26 years old, this new employee to Bitcoin startup Coinbase seemed to be at the perfect place to become well-informed on the subject of cryptocurrency. He was hired in February 2013, very shortly before Bitcoin reached a drastic high only a couple of months later in April.

In February when Olaf was hired, one whole unit of Bitcoin was priced at only 20 or 30 dollars. Even though this was a time when hardly anyone knew about or had even heard of digital currencies, Olaf somehow knew in his gut that this would become big and that it was a good time to invest. His way of doing this was by getting paid from his job at Coinbase solely in Bitcoins. He decided to collect as much as he possibly could, and then just waited to see what happened. He assumed he was waiting for greatness, but I doubt he could have suspected just how great of an investment he had actually made.





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