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What were your dreams when you were 12 years old? It might have been to learn how to ride a bike, get the latest PlayStation or GameBoy console, or own a Barbie Dreamhouse.
Well one young lad from Idaho had the dream of becoming a millionaire by the time he turned 18 - and in 2017 Erik Finman became the self-proclaimed youngest Bitcoin millionaire.
Flashback to May 2011, when Erik was just 12 years old, and reportedly told his parents he didn’t want to go to college to pursue a degree.
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Instead, he wanted to make his millions through other means - and he settled on cryptocurrency.
After being given $1,245 from his grandmother, Finman made the clever investment move into Bitcoin (BTC) - which was then trading at about $12 - and saw him land around 103 BTC.
Six years later in 2017, when BTC leaped and saw highs of $20,000, Finman's initial investment skyrocketed with it. He was just 18 at the time.
His $1,245 sum catapulted into the millions and the young lad was reportedly in control of a staggering $2.07 million - you would certainly be able to buy a lot of PlayStations with that.
Along the way, it’s thought that Finman purchased more BTC, bringing his total up to 401 BTC. As of January 2018, that amount of money would have reportedly been worth around $4.4 million.
According to LinkedIn, Finman used the money he made off Bitcoin to set up an educational tech startup company, which he later sold. Since then, he's launched Metal Pay - a platform "to provide people of all knowledge levels with the ability to invest in Bitcoin".
Crypto reached a high in 2021 - if Finman had held onto his initial investment, some think he would have been sitting on $27.6 million - which is insane when you think he only started with just over $1,000.
While Finman got lucky and played his cards right, Bitcoin is an incredibly volatile cryptocurrency with a track record of booms and busts.
November 2022 saw a crypto market crash, with many losing thousands after the price of Bitcoin plummeted below $16,000.
But the tide has slowly been shifting, and cryptocurrency seems to be recovering. This week, Bitcoin's price surged to $42,089 - the first time it's hit such heights since April 2022.
