Forget Student Loan Forgiveness—Here’s How One Dad Hopes To Avoid College Fees Altogether

Student loan forgiveness, the possibility that the U.S. government could write off a large portion of the country's $1.7 trillion of student debt, has become a popular idea in recent months.
U.S. President elect Joe Biden campaigned last year on a promise to forgive at least $10,000 in student loans per borrower, potentially helping 43 million Americans who are typically paying between $200 and $300 per month toward their student loan.
Hoping to avoid student loan fees altogether, U.K.-based PR executive Peter Bowles started a bitcoin fund for his daughter Izabella in 2019—with it's value skyrocketing to over $40,000 today as the bitcoin price exploded through 2020.
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The bitcoin fund, set-up to try to cover college fees, doubled in its first year and grew by over 400% from January 2020 to January 2021—though it crashed along with most other assets in the March before quickly rebounding.
"My guess has always been that the fund could be worth serious money in the future—somewhere in the six or seven figures," Peter, who plans to hold onto the cryptocurrency until his daughter turns 18 regardless of its performance, said, speaking last year.
"Or it could just be worth a tin of Heinz baked beans, fitting for a student. My plan is to leave it there like an art installation, not get tempted to cash out and see what happens. If it doesn’t make any money at all and is just worth a tin of beans then I’ll enter them for the Turner Prize—a work that’s been 18 years in the making."
When Izabella was born, Peter placed a notice in the Times of London newspaper, the same newspaper bitcoin's mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto took his now infamous "Chancellor on the brink of second bailout" headline from, announcing her birth along with her bitcoin account address. The address has seen some 300 donations from around the world.
Peter took out another ad in the Times of London this week, trumpeting the fund's success so far as institutional investors and Wall Street giants warm to bitcoin.
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This week, Anthony Scaramucci, whose 2017 tenure as Donald Trump’s communications director lasted just 11 days, became the latest hedge fund manager to buy into bitcoin.
The value of the combined bitcoin and cryptocurrency market has now surged to over $1 trillion. The bitcoin price has climbed to $38,000 per bitcoin, with the total value of the world's biggest cryptocurrency passing $700 billion—and pushing bitcoin up the charts of largest global assets.