
“I kind of thought about bitcoin — that was once a fraction of a penny and now it’s tens of thousands of dollars, and this happens to people, it’s possible,” Tommy said. “I trusted my friend and I figured if it went to zero, that’s OK. I thought of it as a lotto ticket that wouldn’t expire.”
Less than two months after their initial investment in late February, their lives changed. It was their dad’s birthday, and instead of giving him a card, they made him a millionaire.
James and Tommy rolled the dice, each initially investing $200. They also presented the idea to their mom, dad, sister and a few other family members.
“My mother and sister were skeptical but they each put in $100, too,” Tommy said. “After a few weeks when it was up about 300% they put another $100 in each, and then it kept going up.”
In total, the group put in nearly $8,000.
‘Oh my God’
Prior to the pandemic, the brothers’ primary income came from filming weddings, but the Covid-19 outbreak nearly shuttered their business. Rather than booking 30-40 weddings that year, James said, they did no more than eight.
“We kind of fell through the cracks,” Tommy said. “The government stimulus checks weren’t enough to sustain us. I’m a positive person but it was really tough, and not knowing the future was kind of scary.”
As their shiba coin investment took off, it was hard to believe the change in their fortune. While filming a wedding in mid-April, they kept half an eye on their investment, which had quickly shot up to $100,000. And it kept climbing.
“We woke up the next morning and it doubled. We were like, ‘Oh my god,”https://www.cnn.com/” Tommy said.
“Then it went up to $700,000 and I told my brother it’s going to hit a million. I kept refreshing my phone.”
The next day, it happened.
“The day it hit a million — my mom and sister, they didn’t think it was real.”
The family’s initial stake of $7,900? It’s now worth nearly $9 million as of Thursday. CNN Business confirmed the value via their coin wallet and transaction history.
What is shiba coin?
Shiba inu was created less than a year ago — an obvious spinoff of dogecoin, which features a Shiba Inu dog as its mascot. It may have been a joke of a joke, but not many people are laughing now.
The crypto, known informally as a memecoin or altcoin, has also won a handful of celebrity backers from former boy band stars to NFL pros.
“As an enthusiast and investor in cryptocurrency, seeing the announcement about SHIB and Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin’s donation to India was very exciting,” Carter told CNN Business in a statement. “I believe there is an incredible future for Crypto – especially knowing how it can be used for good and more importantly, to save lives.”
“The shiba business is booming and crypto is the way to go,” Brown told CNN Business on Thursday. “It’s a new way of investing.”
There are thousands of cryptocurrencies, and bitcoin and ethereum account for nearly two-thirds of the entire $2.3 trillion global crypto market. And while they can be quite profitable, as James and Tommy have learned, they are also extremely volatile.
Advice from Tommy and James
As for how Tommy and James plan to use their money, they aren’t entirely sure. They have yet to completely cash out their investment, and are holding out for something called ShibaSwap, a decentralized exchange platform.
“This has happened so quickly it’s hard to even comprehend the things you can do with this money,” Tommy said.
But the first order of business is to help mom and dad.
“My parents’ house needs a new roof, so I’ll take care of that.”
For anyone thinking of trying to replicate the brothers’ wild success, James offers a word of warning: “Don’t put in any money that you aren’t willing to lose,” he said. “The meme tokens are very high-risk and you really don’t know what is going to happen with them. We know this is not what typically happens, although shiba has changed our lives. When you see it fluctuate so much, it does keep you up at night.”
— CNN Business’ Paul R. La Monica contributed to this article.
This news is republished from another source. You can check the original article here.
Be the first to comment