Featured Image Credit: Fox 5/Inside Edition
Topics: US News, News, Cryptocurrency, Money
Joe Harker
One man had the most profitable night of his life and he did it all in his sleep as he woke up to discover he'd suddenly become a trillionaire.
That's what happened to nurse Chris Williamson last year when he spent $20 on cryptocurrency and a few days later woke up to discover he was wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.
Like many crypto investors, he'll have been hoping to strike it rich, with studies on those who invest in them indicating that 71 percent of people who stump up their actual money believe it'll make them a billionaire one day.
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The truth can be far more punishing, as a crypto crash led to the creation of a group chat where a few thousand investors spend their time screaming in anguish that they've spent their money on something which keeps losing value.
Chris joined the cryptocurrency bandwagon and checked his investments every morning to see how they were doing, and then one day got the shock of his life as he discovered he was now the richest man in the world.
The nurse recounted what at first appeared to be the world's greatest stroke of good fortune as he woke up to discover more than a trillion dollars in his account.
He said: "I looked at it again and then I fell out of my bed and ran to my desk to try and figure out what was going on."
Chris discovered that his newfound trillionaire status wasn't all it was cracked up to be, however, as he wasn't seeing the same amount when he tried to move his new wealth to another platform.
Sadly for the guy it turned out to be a glitch in the system which was giving him a false number.
The glitch kept expanding and the money the cryptocurrency app told him he had at one point climbed to $173,277,357,372,090 - which is around 173 trillion dollars for those who don't want to count all those figures.
Sadly, this meant he didn't actually become a trillionaire as his account got frozen by Coinbase and his brief moment of waking up to discover he's the richest man in the world was fleeting.
He did say he tried 'to find humor in it', but admitted 'it's depressing' to briefly flirt with having so much money that you'll never have to want for anything again only to realises it's all just numbers on a screen.
There are worse things that can happen to people with a sudden cryptocurrency windfall than mild disappointment.
Some major investors wake up to discover that almost all the value of their investment has gone, and this time it isn't some awful glitch.
Others have landed themselves in trouble with the law after mistakenly being given millions they didn't earn and could end up in prison.