When he was only 12 years old, in May 2011, his older brother Scott introduced him to bitcoin when one coin was worth about $12 by sending him 0.2 bitcoins so he could use the cryptocurrency.
Later on, his grandmother gave him $1,000 as a gift in Easter and, instead of buying tons of toys or putting it all in a savings account, Erik bought himself some bitcoins. A few years later, in late 2013, when one bitcoin was worth $1,200, Erik decided it was time to sell, and turned his $1,000 gift into $100,000.
According to Mashable, then 15-year-old Erik used his earnings to launch an online tutoring service dubbed Botangle. At the time Mashable caught up with him, his business had 20 employees and over 100 active users who were presumably part of his target audience: frustrated students to find teachers to video chat with.
At the time, Erik Finman made it clear he wasn’t planning on going to college by betting with his parents:
"I actually have a deal with my parents that if I make a million dollars before I turn 18, I don’t have to go to college. I’m going to do it or die trying"
Eventually, the young entrepreneur sold Botangle’s technology in early 2015. The investor gave him two options: 300 bitcoins (each worth little over $200 at the time) or $100,000 in fiat. Erik took bitcoin because he believed in its future. From that point on, most of what Erik has been doing is managing his bitcoin investments and working on various projects, such as NASA’s ELaNa project.
Finman managed to win the bet with his parents, as he now owns 403 bitcoins (worth about $1.09 million), and has small investments in other cryptocurrencies, including litecoin and ethereum. The young entrepreneur believes bitcoin’s best days are still to come. He stated:
"Personally I think bitcoin is going to be worth a couple hundred thousand to a million dollars a coin."
Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/early-bitcoin-investor-dropped-out-of-high-school-now-hes-a-millionaire/
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