Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Man buys $27 of bitcoin, forgets about them, finds they're now worth $886k

Via Daily Timewaster

 Norwegian man discovers $27 bitcoin investment now worth more than enough to buy a flat

Bought in 2009, currency's rise in value saw small investment turn into enough to buy an apartment in a wealthy area of Oslo


The meteoric rise in bitcoin has meant that within the space of four years, one Norwegian man’s $27 investment turned into a forgotten $886,000 windfall.

Kristoffer Koch invested 150 kroner ($26.60) in 5,000 bitcoins in 2009, after discovering them during the course of writing a thesis on encryption. He promptly forgot about them until widespread media coverage of the anonymous, decentralised, peer-to-peer digital currency in April 2013 jogged his memory.

Bitcoins are stored in encrypted wallets secured with a private key, something Koch had forgotten. After eventually working out what the password could be, Koch got a pleasant surprise:

"It said I had 5,000 bitcoins in there. Measuring that in today's rates it's about NOK5m ($886,000)," Koch told NRK.

More @ The Guardian

1 comment:

  1. I intended to buy some of that bit coin when it was dirt cheap. I had no idea it
    would amount to anything. Just figured I'd buy it like I did that case of Billy Beer.
    I never could figure out just how to buy it and didn't follow through. Oh well.
    By the way, I got tired of looking at the Billy Beer and threw it out just before
    the price started to go up on it.

    ReplyDelete