My wife and I enjoyed a relaxing vacation in the Dominican Republic last week. We were there to attend a pickleball clinic along with 40 other devotees of the game. It was a lot of fun, and we met some wonderful people over the course of the week.

While at a group dinner one night a fellow traveler confided to me that she funded the trip, and the purchase of a new automobile, with profits from trading bitcoin. I have to admit, I nearly swallowed my soup spoon.

It’s not that I had trouble believing someone could have made enough money trading bitcoin to finance purchases of that size. Bitcoin exploded in value last year, generating huge profits for its adventurous owners.

What did surprise me is that the person describing this newfound wealth to me was not who you might expect. Debbie is a 60-ish retiree living in a small New England town. She works in her garden in the summer and plays pickleball indoors during the cold winter months.

And when she isn’t busy doing those things or volunteering at her church, she is quietly trading bitcoin on her laptop computer in the privacy of her modest apartment. None of her friends or neighbors knows about it, and she’d prefer to keep it that way since word travels fast in her neck of the woods.

Debbie decided to take a flyer on bitcoin after reading an article about it at her local library in the Wall Street Journal. She correctly surmised that interest in cryptocurrencies was about to take off, and invested the winnings she had accumulated over many years from her church’s weekly Bingo games to buy into bitcoin.

Debbie bought four bitcoins for $1,000 each in March of 2017, hoping to make enough money to repair her aging pickup truck. Eight months later, she sold three of the coins at $10,000 apiece. She is holding on to the fourth one as a “lottery ticket” in case bitcoin continues to escalate in value, but she understands it might end up being worth no more than she paid for it (or perhaps even less).

As for her $27,000 of realized gains, instead of fixing up her old car Debbie traded it in for a new one. She also decided to celebrate her financial windfall by splurging on a trip to the Caribbean during the coldest time of the year, which is where I ran into her.

I am inspired by people like Debbie. It takes guts to do what she did when she did it. Of course, now everybody knows about bitcoin, but when she took the plunge it was far from a sure bet.

These days, just about everyone is asking me how they can profit from bitcoin but I think it is too late for them. During the past month, its price has dropped from above $19,000 to less than $11,000. Who knows where it will go from here, but I think it’s safe to say that the easy money in bitcoin has already been made.

As for Debbie, she reckons this may be the first and last time she ever gets a chance to make ten times her money in such a short period of time. I’m not so sure about that, but I do know they don’t come around very often.

By the way, if you don’t know what pickleball is then I suggest you check it out. It’s a great way to get exercise year round, especially if you are over 50 like me. And every once in a while you may meet someone like Debbie, who may not be exactly who you think she is.

P.S. You don’t need to wait for the next bitcoin to earn huge profits like Debbie did. We analyze the most successful investors in the world and will share their best stock ideas with you by clicking HERE.