Yea, he was lucky that he used Coinbase. Perhaps, I believe that amount of money was something that he can afford to lose and that was why he didn't bother if the funds get missing or not. Since bitcoin has hit six digits was why the owner of the funds picked interest to check his account. If you read the OP, the owner couldn't have access due to some important data that he forgot. Bitcoin has the power law to increase in value exponentially overtime and early investors are proud of jumping into the train early.
Well, we almost failed to access the account, my friend would have given up if I hadn't pursued it, the automatic verification was failing for days, we only had three submissions till we were asked to try again in 24 hours. Fortunately after fiddling with their live chat, I managed to connect to a live agent. I've also had positive experiences in the past where I had abandoned accounts on Kraken and Bitstamp, but that was over 4 years ago.
Yeah, I got some coins (Litecoin and Doge) from faucets in 2017 too. Faucets were a thing then, and most of them paid as promised though in tiny bits. Again, most coins weren't worth much and accumulating them to meet withdrawal requirements seemed tedious then. Looking back now and what some of those coins are worth now, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to continue accumulating them then. During this period in reference, Litecoin was less than $4 and Doge had several zeros. Well, we can't go back in time.
Oh no, you're adding salt to the wound, I also had litecoin from faucets.