> without putting really any effort or taking any risks

He sunk $27 into an investment that (from his knowledge at the time) had a high chance of ending up completely worthless, and a low chance of exploding in value (if bitcoin took off).

That isn't "without taking any risk". On the contrary, it was a very high-risk investment. In this case, it paid off. (It was a low value investment, but that doesn't change the relative risk: making lots of (un- or anti-correlated) low-value, high-risk investments, instead of one big one, is a way to reduce your total risk).