The ghost of the Shenzhen venue
In Shenzhen in 2014, the air was filled with the smell of soldering electronic components and the ambitions of entrepreneurs. In a conference room of a five-star hotel, a tall, skinny Russian teenager was preaching in accented English to more than fifty listeners below. The PowerPoint projected on the screen read 'Ethereum - Next Generation Smart Contracts and Decentralized Application Platform', and the last page prominently displayed 'Conference Benefits: 5,000 ETH given to each participant'.
"In ten years, each Ethereum will be worth $1,000." The teenager scratched his head, his voice calm as if discussing whether to drink soy milk or milk for breakfast.
Manager Zhang laughed out loud at the time. This electronics wholesale dealer who had struggled in Huaqiangbei for twenty years had seen too many scams about 'blockchain' and 'decentralization'. He turned to his companion and whispered: 'They haven’t even grown hair yet and want to do pyramid schemes, thinking 5,000 air coins can fool us into joining?' When he left, he not only didn't take that string of codes but also threw the brochure issued by the organizers into the hotel lobby's trash can.
Today, this Russian teenager named Vitalik Buterin is revered as 'God V'. The 'air coins' he gave away back then, calculated at the current price of $4,600, are worth a total of $23 million, or 160 million yuan. Manager Zhang still sells data cables behind the counter in Huaqiangbei, but every time he hears the word 'Ethereum', he reflexively experiences stomach cramps - this might be the most expensive case of indigestion.
The most expensive pizza order in history
If Shenzhen's story makes people lament, then Laszlo Hanyecz's story can make all cryptocurrency investors collectively have a heart attack. On May 22, 2010, this programmer from Florida posted on the Bitcoin forum: 'I am willing to spend 10,000 Bitcoins to buy two pizzas, the bigger the better, with extra cheese.'
At that time, Bitcoin had been around for less than a year, priced at about 0.003 cents, and two pizzas were worth $25, which means each Bitcoin was worth only 0.0025 dollars. This guy successfully exchanged Bitcoin for physical goods, marking a milestone in cryptocurrency history - later, May 22 was designated as 'Bitcoin Pizza Day'.
Let’s do a simple calculation: at the highest historical price of Bitcoin at $120,000, those two pizzas would be worth $1.2 billion. What Laszlo ate might not have been ordinary pizza, but a 'Pluto limited edition' made with black truffles, caviar, and gold leaf.
When a reporter later interviewed this programmer, he appeared remarkably calm: "At least I proved that Bitcoin can be used for real transactions." This openness commands respect, as not everyone can laugh while discussing a story about missing out on billions. Although his smile might be even more forced than the cheese on pizza.
Forgotten wealth password
Norwegian student Christopher Koch accidentally came across Bitcoin in 2009. Out of technical curiosity, he bought 5,000 for $27. Later, he stored the files on an old hard drive and, like all college students, graduated, worked, fell in love, and completely forgot about it.
Until 2013, when Bitcoin's price broke through $1,000, he suddenly remembered that he seemed to have had this thing. When he rummaged through his belongings and found the hard drive, this former college student experienced the most thrilling roller coaster of his life - the ecstasy of finding the hard drive intact, the panic of forgetting the password, and finally the exhaustion of successfully unlocking it. Now, those 5,000 Bitcoins are worth over $600 million.
The most wonderful part of this story is that Koch, forgetting the Norwegian capital gains tax regulations, voluntarily contacted the tax authorities to report his taxes. The tax officials initially thought they encountered a scammer: 'You say you found electronic currency worth hundreds of millions on your hard drive?' In the end, he paid taxes worth several million dollars, becoming one of the most bizarre tax cases in Norwegian history.
Mining machines roar in the mountainous areas of Sichuan
In a mountainous county in Sichuan, the story of plumber Old Li is being passed down by locals. In 2015, he heard that 'mining' could make money, took out 80,000 yuan he had prepared to marry off his son, and set up a shed in his backyard filled with ten mining machines.
"Is Old Li crazy?" "I heard it's some kind of network pyramid scheme." "Those machines buzz all day, they must be printing fake money!" Rumors spread in the village, and even his son almost severed ties with him. Old Li's Bitcoins skyrocketed in value during the 2017 bull market, but he didn't sell. In the 2018 bear market, his assets shrank by 90%, and he still didn't sell.
In 2021, when Bitcoin broke through $60,000, old Li, who was sixty years old, gave each villager over 60 years old a red envelope of 10,000 yuan. Aunt Wang, who mocked him the hardest at the time, was trembling while holding the red envelope: 'Old Li, is that money printing machine... still hiring?'
The art of brushing past wealth
These stories have a common point: when opportunity knocks, it always wears strange clothes. Vitalik looks like a nerdy college student, the earliest supporters of Bitcoin were liberal tech enthusiasts, and the terminology of blockchain sounds like lines from a science fiction novel. Our brains have evolved a perfect 'suspicious thing recognition system' - when encountering things beyond our cognitive range, the first reaction is always 'Isn't this a scam?'
Investment master Howard Marks once said: 'Extraordinary performance comes from non-consensus correctness.' The problem is that non-consensus matters are mostly wrong. How do we distinguish between genius and madness, opportunity and scams? Here are a few hard-earned tips:
The persistence of tech enthusiasts is more credible than the enthusiasm of salespeople. When God V talks about Ethereum, it’s like solving a math problem, while fund promoters usually care more about your aunt's retirement money.
Truly revolutionary things initially seem like toys. When email first appeared, people asked, 'Why not just mail a letter?' In its early days, Taobao was viewed as 'online street vendor goods'.
All 'sure-win' projects are guaranteed to lose. Bitcoin has experienced three crashes and holders need steel-like nerves.
Standing in 2025 looking back, we laugh at those 'smart people' who missed out on Ethereum, but let's not forget that while we read this article, somewhere in a corner, the next world-changing technology might be born, which is being treated as a joke by most people. Perhaps true investment wisdom is distinguishing whether you are holding on to a vision or really being foolish while others laugh at you.
After all, behind every legendary story of sudden wealth in history stands thousands of genuinely deceived unfortunate souls. Just like among those who attended the 2014 conference in Shenzhen, there were indeed a few who later lost everything to various altcoin scams - they simply happened to maintain the wrong suspicions about the right things and let down their correct vigilance about the wrong things.
So next time you encounter a young person in slippers talking about world-changing ideas, don’t rush to laugh. First, ask about the technical details and then check his code submission history - perhaps he is carrying a future worth hundreds of millions, and all you need to do is resist the impulse to dismiss that string of numbers as 'air coins'.
After all, in this magical era, the most expensive cost is often not the failure after trying, but the epiphany after missing out. Just like now, knowing the story of Ethereum, are you pondering: is the next God V writing code in some garage or college dorm right now? And this time, are you ready to receive that string of 'air' that could be worth a fortune?
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