An Illinois resident who won $500,000 in the state lottery has revealed he put half of it into Bitcoin (BTC) back in May.
Reddit user "Joxnlol" posted an image of himself clutching the Illinois state lottery check on Nov. 5, with the caption: "Did this. Then put half into BTC in May. Remind me in 8 months if I f****d up."
Later, Joxnlol posted multiple images of himself and the winning ticket as proof of his claim.
65% gain to date
Joxnlol's winning ticket sealed him the $500,000 bounty on April 19: given he converted half of it in early May, his investment has so far seen close to a 65% gain, according to analysis by Coin360. (See graphical analysis below.)
In a subsequent post, Joxnlol indicated that he plans to hold the investment for a minimum of one year.
"I don't intend to touch any of it for at least another year," Joxnlol posted. "I set aside money for emergencies, I set aside money for myself, and I set aside money for tattoos. The only major purchases I've done is [...] bought a new car for myself and put a downpayment on a house."
Notably, Joxnlol's $500,000 was reduced to roughly $357,000 after taxes, he revealed — meaning he would have invested $178,500 in BTC.
Reddit thread contributors were virtually unanimous on two points: that if Joxnlol had made any kind of error, it was by not having invested 100% in BTC, and second, that he was tempting fate by publicizing his face and winnings on the internet, making him a potential target for criminals.
Joxnlol also indicated he was storing his Bitcoin on trading app Robinhood, arguing that for him, personally, the risk of losing a cold-storage wallet outweighed the security risks of trusting his coins to a centralized third-party.
Crypto community member @BashCo, who tweeted a link to Joxnlol's thread, remarked, "The popularity of this tweet makes me question if average people still falsely associate Bitcoin with lottery. Bitcoin is sound money. But if I tweet that, it will only get 20 likes."
By press time @BashCo's tweet has garnered 630 likes and Joxnlol's original Reddit thread has 2,700 upvotes.
Number of US crypto owners doubled in 2019
Bitcoin's current market cap of approximately $167.8 billion represents around 73% of state and local lottery revenue between 2008-2017, which totaled $228.8 billion, according to Statista data.
A new survey of United States residents estimated that 36.5 million of them now own some form of cryptocurrency — representing a twofold increase, from 7.95% in 2018 to 14.4% in 2019.
What do you think of investing lottery prize money in Bitcoin?
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His money, his business. I only wonder why some people are so carefree about drawing attention to their new wealth.
more then like they don't know any better or haven't read the horror stories we have jejeje
Would a wealthy person expose himself like this player did?
He's probably not in danger of being harmed over low 6 figures, more like he's going to attract a lot of pests. Unfortunately, anyone can submit a FOIA request to the IL Lottery to find out his name.
Notice he used the letters " Jo"...only a fool wouldn't know he's Josh Groban.
He should have used his winnings to bet against the Chicago Bears he would have quadrupled his money by now.