Bitcoin & the Almost Millionaires of StarCraft
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3
min
Feb 4, 2025
The Unlikely Millionaires: How Losing Paid Off Big Time
Imagine becoming a millionaire after NOT winning a tournament.
Following up on our recent article on the price of Bitcoin, as well as the stories that have been circulating about lost or unintentionally misused crypto fortunes, here’s a blast from the past that features one of the greatest videogames of all time, the father of esports, the king of the RTS genre: Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft: Brood War.
The year was 2011. Brood War’s competitive scene had reached its apex the previous year right before the sequel, StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty, was released – players, resources and attention began to migrate to the new game. The online tournament AoV iCCup StarLeague took place in that context after Terran, Zerg or Protoss players qualified on the Battle.net ladder. The prize pool? A mere $1000. However, while the top four competitors received $500, $250, $150, and $100 respectively, fifth to eighth place won 25 Bitcoins each!
Back then, 25 Bitcoins had a total value of about $41.25. Today, with one Bitcoin being worth over $100,000, that would tally up to $2.5 million approximately. What happened to those players? Well, fifth-placed Sziky commented on the Team Liquid forum in 2021 that he doesn’t know exactly when those Bitcoins were spent, mentioning the possibility that they might have been used to buy a beer. Jumper, who placed eighth, never even claimed the Bitcoins, which means they’re lost forever. Hejek, who came in seventh, said the same. Only Koll, sixth place, apparently didn’t reveal the fate of his digital bounty.
StarCraft’s Legacy: From Brood War to Modern Esports
Although StarCraft’s presence in esports isn’t what it used to be, it still remains highly competitive. In the case of StarCraft II, last year’s Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia offered a prize pool of $1,050,000. As for Brood War (“StarCraft Remastered” after 2017), we have South Korea to thank, because their SOOP StarCraft League –previously ASL– continues to grow each year as a premium streamed event, filmed in a top studio with a live audience. The prize pool is small, close to $60,000, but those who compete in it are mostly after the prestige that results from doing well in such a legendary tournament. Korea, after all, not only showed the rest of the world how to take a mechanically difficult game to godly heights but also how to broadcast epic matches as if they were traditional sports, building narratives around star players and filling stadiums. The birth of esports as we know it.
It’s highly unlikely that playing StarCraft: Brood War will make you a potential millionaire ever again, but at least it continues to evolve and bring excitement to competitors and fans across the world. Those who played it when it was released in 1998 can both relive 90s videogame glory and discover fresh strategies that have taken the scene by storm, a luxury not allowed to many “retro” game communities. Recently, it has been revived on Game Pass along with its sequel. Not bad for a 26-year-old game!
Hindsight is 20/20: The Unpredictable Nature of Crypto
And while it’s tempting to think those who took home 25 Bitcoins in 2011 are damning the universe right now, it’s important to remember that they couldn’t have predicted the future of a historically volatile asset. They could have also sold them in 2013 when they were worth $100 each. They could have been the victims of a hack or lost them in a trade. There’s not much sense in dwelling on what-ifs.
But next time you get a hold of a ridiculous amount of crypto, we recommend seeking financial advice (and hey, we provide that service!).
