Teenage bitcoin millionaire can see the cryptocurrency’s value shooting as high as $1 million
If this teen entrepreneur, high-school dropout and bitcoin millionaire has any predictive powers at all, then we’ve hardly seen the top of the market for the hot cybercurrency.
Meet Erik Finman, who started picking up bitcoin at $12 apiece back in May 2011, when he was just 12, riding a hot tip from hits brother Scott and a $1,000 gift from his grandmother, he told CNBC. He’s now the owner of a reported 403 bitcoins, and while the cybercurrency has been on a bit of a bumpy ride lately, at Thursday’s price BTCUSD, -0.15% of $2,685.53 each, the now 18-year-old Idahoan’s stash is worth $1.08 million and change.
‘Personally I think bitcoin is going to be worth a couple hundred thousand to a million dollars a coin.’
Erik Finman
Finman cashed out his first bitcoin investment back in 2013 and started Botangle, an online education company that provides tools for locating instructors in subjects they need or wish to learn about.
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He wasn’t a fan of high school and convinced his parents, both Ph.D.’s, to let him drop out at 15.
His teachers clearly weren’t seeing his potential. “One teacher told me to drop out and work at McDonald’s because that was all I would amount to for the rest of my life. I guess I did the dropout part,” the young bitcoin millionaire said. He didn’t really want to go to college, either, and won a bet with his parents that if he was worth a million dollars by 18, he could skip it. He was, and so he did.
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Finman encountered discouragement from an Uber executive, who, instead of listening to his Botangle pitch, told him he should count on college rather than racking up millions. But the teen did end up successfully selling his company’s technology, for a cool price of 300 bitcoin, reportedly. He has said he took that offer over an alternative $100,000.
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Bitcoin prices have soared more than 300% in the span of a year, with the bulk of the gain coming during May and June. Ethereum, one of its chief rivals, has also seen big gains. Bitcoin tapped $3,000 last week, before a pullback last week that saw it shed billions in market cap.