Words by: Catherine Lewis
The year 2011, eh? What a time! In that year alone, we saw the release of Skyrim, Portal 2, and even the full release of Minecraft. Another fun fact about 2011 is that Bitcoin wasn't much of a thing then, which is a really important piece of context you might want to remember for the rest of this article.
Back to the modern day, a screenshot of a Tweet has been blowing up on the r/HolUp subreddit, and for good reason. The tweet shows a list of prizes for a 2011 StarCraft tournament, ranging from a respectable $500 prize for first place, down to $250 for second, and eventually, 25 Bitcoin for places fifth through to eighth. If that doesn't mean much to you (you're not alone), let me translate: it's a lot.
At the time of the tournament, 25 Bitcoin fetched $41.75, which was a reasonable amount for the runner ups. Obviously though, times have changed, and the value of Bitcoin has skyrocketed since then. To be precise, if one of these winners had kept hold of their winnings for all this time, they'd now have the equivalent of $1,105,172.50 sitting in their savings. Over a million dollars. Also, keep in mind that this prize was offered to four players, so technically speaking, there was over four million dollars in the runner up prize pool. First place isn't looking so hot anymore, huh?
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Before you get too jealous, not all of these runner ups were as fortunate as it might appear. One of the players, who goes by the name Jumper, actually spoke about their experience in the tournament and what happened with their winnings back in 2017, over on TLnet. It turns out that they never even claimed their winnings in the first place, so the potential millions never even entered their possession. And yes, they do now know how much it would have been worth. I'm not sure if anyone has ever been more deserving of an F in the chat.
Featured Image Credit: esports.net / RedbullTopics: News