That's an awesome story dude! how something stake for just €2  ballooned to €200 ! !
You know most of the pioneers who bought BTC at 2017 would have sold when dip came, it really shows it is not just something lucky but Hodling Tight.

Actually your friend got lucky enough to keep those untouched. Sometimes I think emotion & fear beat our strategy lol, otherwise all of us should have such kind of story, dude. it reminds me 2 pizza for 10000 bitcoin story, The shopkeeper doesn't want to accept bitcoin for pizza, the person who refused is regretting now, way back, and now thinks he would be a billionaire.

I have a somewhat similar experience, although not exactly like this. I received some Bitcoin and Ethereum payments from various income apps around 2020 after watching various income-related videos on YouTube. I don't remember the amount, but when I recovered that account in 2023, I had about $10 in my wallet. Although the story is not as interesting to me as you are.

I earned thousands of degecoins on freedoge.co.in in 2015 and I remembered it when Elon Musk was promoting Dogecoin and it reached $1. Another good moment I had was 0.001 Bitcoin on old Bustabit account and 0.005 Bitcoin on Freebitco's account but I found those in 2021. In any way, it was very nice to see these coins because in 2021, when the price was 60K, their value was still very good.
Btw I hugely regret when I was earning 0.04 Bitcoin per week from signature campaigns and I was converting them into USD because my parents suggested me that US dollar is the best currency and I should be holding everything into that.
Please, do not remind me 2017 anymore , it's very painful.

I do have a similar story, but I don't wanna post screenshots about it, so feel free not to believe me

In Jan 2019, I bought some ETH using Revolut. I know it seems silly, but I 've never hidden that I used to be involved in altcoins before fully transitioning to Bitcoin. I had no idea what ETH was, I had no idea what all of that was. All I knew was that I had paid 500€ and got 4.612ETH.

Some shit happened, I stopped using Revolut, I forgot the money there because for the whole 2019 and 2020 it wasn't moving at all (it was stable for 2 years). It was at the late 2020s when it started going up exponentially and I didn't really notice it, because I don't use social media etc.

In Jan 2022, I remembered the ETH and downloaded Revolut again and sold it, having a solid profit (x10). I see now that I received ~5000€.

The only thing I recall was that I was too sad I didn't sell in November 2021 when it had reached 4000€ per coin. I would have made ~15000€...

Anyway, I spent the whole amount travelling, it was quite a great experience!

In Mar 2023, I created my account here in BitcoinTalk, and transitioned to Bitcoin only.

Maybe it will happen.

But not with the direction it's going now, I guess. Never was an ETH guy, but reading through what may hold it back in its tracks and still does is pretty interesting insane

And surely, one leaving a small sum of BTC for a decade or so will result in something good when he returns to the same place.

Yes, I had a similar experience when there was a couple of dozen dollars in bitcoin left on the electrum wallet and this balance remained untouched, since at that time it was not significant. The wallet was created a couple of years ago, but when btc reached the current ATH, I decided recently (probably a month or two ago) to check the wallet balance out of curiosity, because I didn't remember how much was left there. And I was pleasantly surprised when I found about a couple of hundred dollars in the wallet. Roughly speaking, some small change for the current bull run turned into a more noticeable amount of money.

I would not have remembered this if not for your post. At that moment, I was happy with the random increase in capital and forgot about this incident. Of course, this is not millions, but it makes think about the fact that even insignificant money saved now, in the future, can grow into something more noticeable (with BTC-investments). Or maybe these very invested pennies will be very necessary in the future and will help in difficult times.

It would be interesting to know what amounts of money have accumulated on the balances of crypto exchanges from such “leftover change in wallets”, the owners of which forgot about having a couple of bucks in the past.

I've had many wallets and exchange accounts like this one. But in general I've sold or transferred things that were in them during the previous bull season or so i still keep very small amounts in a few wallets.
If we transfer that money, we will never remember it again, we will invest it in something and it won't be there anymore. But if we keep it in those wallets or accounts for another 5-10 years, it can create capital that will allow us to buy things in the long run

I have so many stories about this, both mine and those I know around me, which one I should tell. I've found many coins in forgotten wallets, both Bitcoin and various notable altcoins. Back then, the amounts were so small that they didn't even seem worth withdrawing, so they just sat in those wallets. Once their value became significant, it was much easier to withdraw them.
If you look back, you always find yourself saying "I wish I bought/kept more". I don't want to say "I wish" again in the future so I take actions now.

But come to think of it, holding from 2017 to this very day isn't easy, and I highly doubt that this friend of yours would have held this bitcoin from 2017 till date if he hadn't lost access to the wallet, or what do you think?

9900% increase since 2017 till date is a really huge increase and profit, but unfortunately, the money invested wasn't as large enough, he would have made a killing, but like I previously said, I believe that if this $2 that was invested in bitcoin in 2017 was let's say $1000 or more, the user wouldn't have lost access to the wallet, and if he hadn't lost access to the wallet, he would have sold the bitcoin way back before today and he would have sold it at a far lesser price.

But all the same, congratulations to him, I had once had a similar experience but mine wasn't exactly as this one.