Bitcoin Forum

The recent meteoric rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has led to the appearance of some unlikely millionaires.  A recent interview by Forbes magazine shows just how powerful Bitcoin has been over the course of the past decade for those who invested early.

The interviewee, a former software engineer in Silicon Valley, asked to remain nameless. However, he did explain that he started purchasing Bitcoin in 2010 after doing some research. He decided that the purchase should be sizable enough to provide some real upside, should Bitcoin ever increase in value, and so he bought $3,000 worth, or, at the time, 20,000.

When the Bitcoin price really started to jump, he made his first sale of 1,000 Bitcoin, netting him $2.6 mln. Since then, he’s quit his day job and now travels the world, flying first class and staying only in five-star resorts.

After explaining his multiple sell-offs, and the $25 mln in profits he’s realized thus far, he explained that he sees Bitcoin values at $150,000 in the long term. “I really do think it will get there,” he says confidently, "But a lot of governments and companies will have to be on board, first. No amount of speculation in the world will push it that high.”

We all dream with being that guy, but being at the right moment at the right time it's just too difficult. All we can do is work with what we have, and just knowing what bitcoin is in 2017 puts you ahead of 99% of the population. Owning some BTC already puts you ahead of pretty much everyone else outside this forum.

Just keep on stacking BTC and in the long term history will be on our side and we will be rich.

Yes but sadly we will never be able to stack up to 20,000 even 20 BTC is a dream for me. But who knows maybe in a few decades 1 BTC will be worth as much as 20,000 BTC is worth today. 

You are 100% correct. When I first started to seriously invest in bitcoins, the price was around $400 and most of my friends and even family said

that I was crazy to pay that much for a digital token. I ignored all their arguments and criticism and it paid off for me. I paid for a few holidays at

local holiday resorts with the profits I have made from those first coins and they are still sceptics. {Now saying $2500 is too much}  ::) They had

their opportunity at $400 and they did not have the balls or the vision to do it... I did.  ;)

i would applaude him for still holding with the current value, he really think about the 150k value in the future, i think he is holding a little for when that will happen, still i didn't know that there were whales from the past, i though that everyone dumped already, and with people still holding 20k bitcoin from the 2010 era, no wonder why bitcoin is not increasing so much

It is impressive to see how some folks believed in bitcoin's rise in value right from the onset. It is a calculated risk that has eventually paid off for him. The most important thing is for latecomers like us to try our best to get the little we can for now hoping for days like this to come.

In 2010 that was just enough Bitcoin for 4 pizzas

Reader exercise - who do you think is paying for his all expense paid travels around the world? If you're buying BTC, you are!

Another fake story.

To buy Bitcoin in 2010 you must to be an oracle, a choosen one , a son of a God..There was no info available about BTC till 2013.

But nice try...I like this story about unnamed billionars and crypto early adopters.  ::)

It's not a fake story at all, there are people on this forum who became millionaires through bitcoin e.g. reptilia, Elwar etc

It could be but the point is that bitcoin can really make a lot of millionaires if you have invested in it from the beginning. There was once a drop out kid who investment in 2011 and now he is also a millionaire. Yes. maybe they are visionary of sort, but they make the right now and we should appreciate it. I know a lot of us are dreaming of something like that. Being early adopted of it and by now we should be millionaires.

I love your optimism.

Let's do the math on that. 1 bitcoin is worth ~$2375 today. 20,000 Bitcoin is worth ~47.5 million. As much as the finite supply plays into the price growth opportunity (particularly when demand is very much still in the early stages), there's no way 1 bitcoin will be worth $47 million.

That's so far past the moon, it's just not going to happen. I don't believe there are enough people in the world to generate the demand required to send the price to that level.

I do love your optimism though.

confidently, "But a lot of governments and companies will have to be on board, first. No amount of speculation in the world will push it that high.”


I don't believe this story.
Typical engineers live modest life.
No one stops the government from "be on board" as long as they "be on board" like everyone else. Bitcoin has been going up this while without government "be on board" the uptrend won't stop anytime soon.
If people like Bitcoin they will definitely invest in Bitcoin & price will keep going up.

Even in the longer-term nor do I see anything like $47 million.  A $20,000 price for BTC would be perfectly OK with me as long as I can HODL on to my "stack".

When looking at the longer-term though, it is worth keeping in mind that most technologies become obsolete as newer technologies come on-stream...  Such is my guess re BTC, something in the next (5? 10? 15? 30?) years will come along and turn BTC into buggy-whips.

I don't really understand his argument that governments need to be on board so that the value can rise to 150K$. Governments aren't really interested in deflationary currencies. They want inflationary currencies, and they want to control that inflation. Bitcoin doesn't offer that.

Living the dream!

Being a Software Engineer myself, I can say that trading in bitcoins can earn you more than a regular day job unless you're working in a big company or are at a higher position in European countries. Investing $3000 is still risky for a currency that was just a year old back then in 2010. Also, he must have had to pay a huge tax on that amount today which cannot be even sold on any exchange in big batches. Max exchanges allow 20-30 btc at a time and for bigger amounts, they require a lot of verification.

It may be a fake story, but you are wrong about the rest.

Mt. Gox, along with several other trading sites, were started in 2010 and there were lots of people trading bitcoins at that time.

Silk Road was started in 2011, and there were lots of people using bitcoins at that time.

Very smart in buying Bitcoin early, not that smart cashing some out and quitting the job so early :D Just my opinion tho...

Yet some people have bought it and others have mined it. What about all those people who were buying pixels on a random site for real money? Bitcoins at least had a purpose and it was possible to use them as a payment. Pixels didn't, it was just an experiment, and yet it worked. People sometimes buy useless things, this is a fact. Some of us get lucky with our purchases.

It really is a great story. I don't know if it is fake or not but can happened, why not. It is very rare to hear about story like this, not much people made this kind of financial achievement. This man believed in it and that other guy bought pizza for, how much? 10000 bitcoins?... I also think that it is pretty big amount to invest in something that is unknown. I am sure that he did lot of research but I don't know... 3000$ is big amount, pretty optimistic investment but he 'bet' hard and he won. Good for him :)

He took a gamble and it paid off, if you really want to live that kind of life then you need to take risks like the one he did, gather the most money you can afford to invest and that does not put your financial future at risk and then invest it in an altcoin with potential, if successful, that could be you in a few years, it is not easy to take such a risk but if you really want to live that life you are going to have to take a decision and follow it through.

I know, right? Just because the guy above only found out about Bitcoin in 2013 doesn't mean everyone else is the same. An old friend of mine bought close to 10,000 Bitcoins for just $1 each back in 2011. Needless to say, people who heard about it back and and took the leap of faith are sitting pretty right about now.

Well, Everyone dreaming about that.
This is another successfull story.

With seeing this our motivation will increase.
But he sure is patient and of course a genius, not to boot.
He knew that bitcoin have a really great potential in the future.
And he proved it.

he didn't spend 3k for 20,000 BTC in 2010 that is far too overpriced - maybe 20 bucks, but not that much.

I'm been here since 2011. This forum was quite busy already, and there was already a pretty large bitcoin community when I discovered it.

And there was tons of info, including mainstream media stories, in 2011.

Life is made for living. He has more than 20 millions dollars in the bank, no way I would be working if I had that.

Besides, as a software engineer he can always find work in the future if the need arises.

What will that accomplish? Anyone with 1000 coins can sign a message saying that they are the guy in this story. I will never do that, because this will compromise my identity and that address will be scrutinized by everyone. I would also not store all those bitcoins in one address. I will have split the coins over several addresses to make it easier to sweep coins from paper wallets < cold storage > to online wallets or hardware wallets. < It is just more practical and secure >

If by some miracle people figure out your private key for 1 address, then you lose all your coins in one go. ^stupid^

You make a good point that anyone having 1000 BTC can sign a message and there is no way we can verify if that's the same person.

Regarding compromised identity: my understanding is that someone who has 20,000 BTC would be wise enough to sign a message in such a way that he can't be doxed.

I just wonder how it became possible for him to foresee the future. I read somewhere in 2009 and in 2010 the miners put bitcoins for sale in ebay but no one was ready to grab them. When trend was like that, if someone decided to grab 20k bitcoins in 2010 must be a genius who got capabilities to foresee what is going to happen.

I mean to say he must deserved the wealth he could get from his bitcoins. Buying some bitcoins in 2010 is not a big deal but holding them till date must be differentiating such people from rest.

I wish i could have be in his position but i am sure am not having enough courage to buy bitcoin now and wait till his speculation comes true 1,50,000$ . But the time he started i dint even dream about bitcoin even  i dint heard about the world crypto currency. In my understanding its all about meeting right things or right people in life make lots of difference.

If only we had known about bitcoin when it is still just starting, we might also end up the same with that software engineer. We all are wishing that we could go back in time and invest in bitcoin so that we will have a huge profit by this time but none of that matters now as it is impossible to do. The best thing to do now is work on what we have now and hopefully wishing that it would also turn the same for us in the future. Just keep stacking bitcoin!

Well, I think he just trusted it and see what will happen to it. Maybe he did a research about cryptocurrencies that time and was convinced that it will give positive results in the future. Another thing is that he is a Software engineer in the silicon valley! I'm sure he has a good wage salary over there and the price of bitcoin that time is so low it will make you feel like if you bought it, you will have nothing to lose, so it is a good investment from way back.

That is very unlikely, being a software engineer and not having 2 powerful computers to mine instead of buying? was there any pool mining

Or ASIC miners in 2010 to make it impossible to mine solo? if I had that money I would be investing at least 1/3 of it back to mining to acquire

More of such coin that gave me so much profit. he sold them @2600 that means it was recently but I heard another story that he sold when

Price reached $1000 back in 2013, I don't know which one to trust. if he doesn't declare his holdings of Bitcoin to the government he could

Lose them all if they catch him at airports.

From what I understand he sold some BTC in several batches at various prices and made 26 millions total, keeping some BTC for even higher prices. I expect he still has 1000 BTC or more.

Most of the Early investors have already been millionaires with bitcoin because even the one who have only bought or mined 500 bitcoins on those years can exchange it for more than a million dollar.  :o

If there will be time travel possible in future, I will be happy to got back to 2009  ;)

This is a very clickbaity history to say the least... it could be real but lately all these news websites love to get stories like this of some guy having a ton of BTC from the early days, selling it and then enjoying their millionaire lifestyle. I think they are inciting people to sell. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that they will start pushing this type of news to trigger panicselling along with the "blocks are full" FUD with the spam attacks. So dont fall for it and just hold.

It's unbelievable story for everybody but I believe this story it's my personal matter.

Oh lord first time hearing a story of a person who actually bought bitcoin in early days and 20000 bitcoins is no joke if he sells everything at 3k he will just make 60 million dollars. Not going to be jealous of him as who thought we would see a day like this

It's a great story and really shows where BTC has come from and where it's heading!

keep chasing those riches lads,maybe your 10000 elephantcoin will be worth something someday

Clap clap, to him. Can't believe this guy had the insight to buy bitcoin back then, and not just a small amount for a joke or something, he bought a sizeable amount which means that he didn't fluke his way to become a millionaire, but he had actually researched and speculated correctly about the future for bitcoin. I agree with the last paragraph, and I can definitely can see bitcoin in the 10 thousands, but as he stated, it need government funding for that to happen and also goverment approval. The only way to support the blockchain and cryptocurrencies, is to make transactions with them, just keeping your bitcoin won't just promote bitcoin and educate people, we need to keep making purchases for bitcoin to go mainstream.

We all dream with being that guy, but being at the right moment at the right time it's just too difficult. All we can do is work with what we have, and just knowing what bitcoin is in 2017 puts you ahead of 99% of the population. Owning some BTC already puts you ahead of pretty much everyone else outside this forum.

The one who atleast know about bitcoin's price history will easily believe in this story but some noobs and self claimed financial expert will always neglect this types of claims.

I would love to be him.

After reading the actual article. i suppose this is the right one https://www.forbes.com/sites/bishopjordan/2017/07/07/bitcoin-millionaire/#5dd294086261 since op said forbes

He heard it from his geeky friends  and got intrigued when the price increases tenfold since then he watched the market to see it first before investing which is a wise move .

youre right about he being paid well but why did he forgot his investment lol. he remembered it when bitcoin was getting popular back in 2013. that time hes ready to sell. what

a coincidence really. but i must agree that if this article is not another tool to sway people, the mas himself has the eyes not just because he chose bitcoin but already think

that time that the game was for long term basis.

But who in his right mind will do something like that, to begin with why would you have a 1000BTC in a single address, if for some reason someone other than you gets access to the private key you will lose your money and unless you are very rich losing 1000BTC will be bad, it is better to have many addressees with 50 BTC each, also why would anyone sign a message to prove they own so many coins, it is like waving your credit report on the street for anyone to see.

I don't know, but wouldn't one paper wallet be enough to store more than 1000BTC? I mean it can't get any safer right? Print it and store it in a Tresor :D

that is one hell of growth and ROI.

i have said it again and will say it again. for all the people who wants to be millionaire.,
the bitcoin ship may look like has been sailed., because the price is high right now, and we cant invest that much to buy 10k/20k bitcoins., but what we can do is , invest in some other alcoin which has future and plan and busniness strategy and is already cheap., buy that altcoin as many as you can and hold on it.
if you see history of ether , stellar and ripple then you will know people made thousands of dollars on their investment.

so keep doing what makes you money and buy altcoins., and keep an eye on market.

Well, i dream that kind of thing too, i wished that i knew bitcoin in 2010 so i buy many of them and hold them until now. If this story is legit or nah, i still like this kind of thing. I want to be rich like him and also want to travel around the world with my bae. This kind of thing will instantly make you a millionaire and makes me having fun all day and night. Goodjob to that guy, he has a great prediction and act wisely. He do research and analysis about bitcoin in the future.

Even if I have bought that many BTC like that engineer from silicon valley in 2010, I would not have quit my day job and travel around. I mean there are sufficient case studies of countless people winning the lottery, quitting their day jobs and travelling around the globe in luxury but they will lose their fortune eventually in a few years time. Those who are interviewed regretted winning the grand prize as it made them feel sad or it led to argument between family members.

The big difference here, is that he did not won the lottery, he made an investment that paid big, he has higher education and knows very well what he is doing, also bitcoin will not stop going up in price and that will only make him richer, but I agree about not leaving his job, he should have kept his previous job and do it for more time that way if something goes wrong he has a backup plan.