Back in 2013, my college roommate, Jake, stumbled upon a little-known cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. Intrigued by its decentralized nature, he decided to invest his last $50 in it, buying about 10 Bitcoins at $5 each. We all laughed and called it "Jake's nerd money," thinking it was just another one of his tech phase fads. Fast forward to 2017, Bitcoin's value skyrocketed to nearly $20,000 per coin. Jake, who had almost forgotten about his investment, suddenly found himself sitting on a small fortune. He cashed out half to pay off his student loans and kept the rest. Today, he’s a blockchain consultant, and we’ve all learned to take "nerd money" a lot more seriously.