Someone invested over $7,000 into Bitcoin 14 years ago and what it's worth now is almost incomprehensible

Someone who invested a little over $7,000 into Bitcoin, or BTC, let their money grow for 14 years, before cashing it out for an incredible amount.

Bitcoin launched onto the cryptocurrency scene in 2009 and has a built-in limit of 21 million coins, with more than 90 percent of that already mined.  

When launched BTC was virtually worthless, and even a year after it was introduced it was still less than $0.01 per coin.

However, it has since seen some wild price increases, soaring above $100,000 in December 2024.

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The wallet contained 10,000 Bitcoin and it was worth a fortune

BTC has managed to make some lucky investors seriously rich, like Erik Finman, who became a millionaire at 18 after investing $1,000 when he was just 12 years-old, or the man who made a 31,250 percent return on his $5,000 investment. 

And last year, another couple of Bitcoin investors decided to cash out after hitting it big. 

Two wallets, each containing 10,000 BTC, had been inactive for 14 years until last July when they suddenly came back to life. 

The BTC from the wallets was then transferred to a new wallet, making the owners an impressive sum in the process. 

The 10,000 BTC would have cost around $7,793 when bought in 2011.

But fast forward to July 2025 and they were worth a mind-blowing $1,092,973,486. 

The mystery owners were what’s known as ‘Bitcoin whales’ – investors who have managed to hold onto a large amount of crypto. 

And their move didn’t go unnoticed among crypto-followers, with the Whale Alert X account flagging the transaction. 

“A dormant address containing 10,000 #BTC (1,092,973,486 USD) has just been activated after 14.3 years (worth 7,793 USD in 2011),” the account wrote at the time.

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But not everyone has been so lucky when it comes to BTC

While Bitcoin has made some investors very rich, particularly those who got onboard early doors, not everyone has been so lucky. 

British IT engineer James Howells lost access to a hard drive that stored the private keys to his crypto wallet, which contained 8,000 BTC. 

The hard drive was accidentally thrown away, and despite his best efforts, poor James has never been reunited with it. 

And it was a similarly sad story for Swiss entrepreneur Stefan Thomas, who won 7,002 BTC in a competition in 2011. 

Much like James, Stefan found himself locked out of his wallet, now worth more than $830 million, after losing the password to his encrypted IronKey S200 flash drive. 

He used eight of 10 guesses to gain access to the wallet before stopping so he wouldn’t be locked out forever. 

Ouch. 

Timeline of major Bitcoin value milestones

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