I gave workers 0.1 Bitcoin for Christmas in 2013 when they mocked me for investing – now its worth THOUSANDS
A GENEROUS employee gave his co-workers 0.1 of a Bitcoin in 2013 as a joke Christmas present – now it’s worth thousands.
The person sharing their story on Reddit said they bought their colleagues the tiny crypto slice for just £37 each.
The crypto whiz explained that they had been a Bitcoin “evangelist”, buying the shares to get their colleagues interested in the investments.
Now, 0.1 of a Bitcoin is worth is £3,206, earning their fellow workers a small fortune from the joke Christmas present nine years later.
A Redditor explained: “Some of my old co-workers made fun of my Bitcoin evangelism.
“So one year for Christmas, I gave them all 0.1 BTC so they’d also have an interest in its success.
“This was around 2013, so it was about $50/each… a nice gift, but nothing crazy.
“Now, of course, it’s quite a bit nicer.”
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Another savvy investor managed to change his life after cashing out thousands of pounds worth of Bitcoin – and he still has three times the amount to withdraw.
The savvy investor put between £900 and £3000 into the turbulent currency in 2017.
Four years on, he has cashed out nine coins over the course of three months, which is roughly £306,000.
But as well as the success stories, one less fortunate crypto user ended up losing £230,000 from scams and investments.
Crypto markets are incredibly volatile because they are all very young currencies.
Bitcoin doesn’t have a central bank or single authority and can be sent from user to user on the network without the need for intermediaries, meaning it’s unregulated.
It also not uncommon for the price of Bitcoin to experience wild swings within a day or even within minutes making it very a dangerous venture.
James Gale hit the button to invest £3,000 in what he thought was the presale link to a hotly-tipped new cryptocurrency but in a second, the money was gone.
James told The Sun: “The reason people get scammed, in my opinion, is that everyone has seen the success that can come from a good cryptocurrency and getting in there early.
“If you get in early you stand to earn the biggest gains, which causes mass panic and FOMO – fear of missing out – which leads people to make massive mistakes.”
Last year alone, scammers took home a record £10billion according to data from Chainalysis – a 79 per cent rise from 2020.
Cryptocurrencies dominate the headlines too, with price fluctuations, new coins and even Eric Trump threatening to sue a creator coin for using his family name.