You have a point here no doubt, but I know of someone that doesn't know anything about the Bitcoin ecosystem, all he just have is faith in Bitcoin, he believes that since Bitcoin is an asset that appreciate in value overtime, if he can get a huge stash of it, and hold for a long time, he is definitely going to make cool money.
Your story is a little contradicting if you ask me. Now first and foremost if he was a little more of a bitcoiner than he was back then I believe he would have still be holding up until now. Now don't get me wrong I'm not trying to judge when people should buy or sell off their coins rather you find out that people that benefit most from holding are those that actually understand the network very well.
Honestly speaking he sold too quick, but that's not the point am trying to say here, what am trying to say is that he knows very less on Bitcoin ecosystem and how it operate, he only possesses the basic knowledge of Bitcoin and how it appreciate in value overtime, so he decides to buy, in a short time he sold off for minimal gains.
The key point was that he took the steps of buying it even without having much knowledge on it, and he would have even made more if he had held it up till this day. Him selling it too quick is what lack of knowledge does to him which was his greatest failing
Now let's talk about how he stored those coins. It's possible he stored them offline or on your hot wallet or worse on an exchange. There is also a high chance that he stored those coins on an exchange for a long period of time and didn't lose them to any form of hack scam or phishing but that doesn't necessarily mean that his coins were safe it only means he was lucky if that is the case.
As for where he held it, am not certain of where he held it though, but holding up your asset in an exchange is what lack of knowledge does to man, because the cost of ignorance is very high and dangerous.