Erik Finman from Idaho, U.S., was an early adopter of Bitcoin. At that time, he was just 12.
"My oldest brother took me," he said. "When we were in the middle of getting tear gassed, I was learning about Bitcoin. Bitcoin was revolutionary, it was all about 'keeping down Wall Street, bro.'"
"People knew it would go up, and thought they would make money on it, but they didn’t [necessarily] see it as an investment," he said. "People said it would go up to $100 one day, or $200, or $10,000 or $1 million. They’d say that, but they didn’t truly, truly believe that."
"You hope for world peace, but you kind of don’t expect it at the same time."
Finman spent his time learning on Bitcoins, spending hours studying its fluctuations online.
When he was given $1,000 of inheritance money from his grandmother, Finman spent it all on the three-year-old cryptocurrency. When he started his venture, a single Bitcoin cost about $10, so here he bought himself 100 Bitcoins, and worked hard to grow their numbers.
"It was like in a video game where you’re trying to collect more and more points. I was collecting more and more coin."
"When it went up to $20, I was excited," Finman said. "When it hit $100 and then $300, those were huge milestones. That was a fun time. It was unstoppable."
At its peak on 15 December 2017, a single Bitcoin reached $17,900.
Finman once made a bet with his parents which were both Ph.Ds, saying that if he was a millionaire by the time he was 18, they wouldn’t force him to go to college. Finman who owns 401 Bitcoins, made a value of himself at just under $3.3 million, won the bet.
Finman himself failed when it comes to education.
"I had a miserable school experience, I didn’t enjoy it at all… One of my teachers even told me to drop out and go work for McDonalds as I’d never amount to anything more in life," he said. "I guess I did the drop out thing."
Erik’s passion for education is partly rooted in the fact that he was himself failed by the system. Even though he personally thinks college is a waste of time, he committed his time to developing an education system to help frustrated students like himself. With this business accepting Bitcoin as payment, his wealth grows.
This was when Finman sold around $100,000 worth of Bitcoin and started Botangle, an online business that connects different thinking students like himself with virtual teachers around the world.
