Two brothers whose business was nearly shuttered because of the pandemic have become multi-millionaires thanks to cryptocurrency.
Brothers Tommy, 38, and James, 42, woke up in Westchester, New York, on April 17 to find out they had become millionaires overnight.
They had previously owned a wedding video business together, but COVID caused endless postponements and delays. Instead of the 30-40 bookings per year, the brothers were used to, they did no more than eight, James told CNN.
After a recommendation from a friend, the pair invested nearly $8,000 into shiba inu coin, a spinoff of dogecoin, along with family members including their mom, dad, and sister.
When they invested in February, the coin was worth a fraction of a cent, but they trusted in their friend, who was a cryptocurrency expert, that their investment would pay off.
What they did not expect was the cryptocurrency market to explode two months later. Their investment was worth $100,000 at one point, and it was growing exponentially. Less than two days later, it hit the million-dollar mark.
“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 day it hit a million—my mom and sister, they didn’t think it was real.”
Tommy initially thought of their investment ‘as a lotto ticket that wouldn’t expire’, he told CNN:
“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. 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.”
Luckily for them, their friend was on the money, as the saying goes. Their investment is now worth nearly $9 million as of May 13, CNN Business confirmed.
