In 2010, I was still in university and was especially fascinated by computers, cybersecurity, and everything new in the digital world.
Bitcoin had just come out not long before then, and people in the online tech community would occasionally mention it—calling it "decentralized electronic cash" that didn't need banks and could be "mined" directly from your own computer, plus it could be traded. I first saw it on BitcoinTalk forums or some tech discussion boards, where someone posted that the Mt. Gox exchange could already buy Bitcoin with dollars, priced around $0.05–$0.08 per coin back then (the price had already risen a bit after the pizza incident).
I thought it was pretty interesting—like a futuristic currency straight out of a science fiction novel—so I wanted to try it out and dip my toes in. Back in those days, there were almost no legitimate channels in China to directly buy coins. I spent a few days figuring things out and finally used a credit card through some gray-market exchange channels (many people did this back then) to convert about $2,000 and fund my Mt. Gox account.
Bitcoin was priced around $0.4–$0.5 at the time (late 2010 to early 2011 levels), and I bought roughly 4,000–5,000 coins—I can't remember exactly, but I spent all $2,000. After buying, I transferred them directly to my Bitcoin-Qt wallet on my computer, backed up the wallet.dat file, and then… completely forgot about it. I formatted the hard drive, reinstalled the system, and life went on.
I went through several computers after that, and who knows which corner of some external hard drive the wallet file ended up in. Work, dating, marriage, having kids—over a decade passed in a flash, living an ordinary life as just another working person.
During the bull market in 2021, when Bitcoin shot up to over $60,000, I didn't really pay attention. It wasn't until the past couple of years (2024–2025), when the price broke $100,000 again and kept climbing, with news headlines everywhere, that I suddenly thought: "Wait… didn't I buy some back then?"
I rummaged through everything and finally found that wallet.dat file in an old external hard drive after two days of searching. Carefully imported it with the latest Bitcoin Core, scanned the blockchain… the balance showed: approximately 4,800 BTC.
At the price at that time (let's say sometime in 2025–2026), it was roughly $700 million. I was completely stunned, my hands were shaking.
Later, I didn't dare touch it recklessly. First I bought a cold wallet (Ledger + Trezor dual backup) and transferred all the coins there. Then I found reliable crypto asset lawyers + tax advisors + a family office and spent around half a year doing compliance planning, phased liquidation, and asset allocation.
In the end, I sold about 30%, converting it into cash, index funds, government bonds, real estate, and such, completely stabilizing my family finances. The remaining 70% I continue to hold long-term, planning to pass it on to the next generation or see how things look in the next cycle.
Looking back now, I'm most grateful to my younger self—that poor college student with not much money, no great foresight, who just thought it was "fun" and went all-in. If I'd thought it was too much trouble back then or worried "how could such a niche thing ever take off?", this story wouldn't exist today.
Of course, in reality, most people including myself don't have this kind of luck. More often, people bought back then too, or mined, or farmed airdrops, and then either forgot to back up, sold early at $2, had their hard drives fail, or got hacked… Life is like that—most "what ifs" are just pipe dreams.
So that night, I dreamed I'd become a multimillionaire again, woke up and got kicked by my girlfriend: "Look at you grinning like you won the lottery. Did you dream about getting rich?"
I gave a bitter laugh: Yeah, I got rich… and then got kicked awake by reality.
True overnight wealth stories are always more outrageous than fiction, but also rarer.
Most of the time, we're just ordinary people making ordinary choices, living ordinary lives.
But who knows? The next "turning $4,000 into billions in the future" opportunity might be sitting quietly tomorrow in some unremarkable forum post, some new project whitepaper, waiting for another young person willing to take the trouble to click in.
(End)
