Guy Buys 30USD in BitCoin in 2009, Is Almost Millionaire Today

[Joyrex]

http://www.dailydot.com/business/bitcoin-kristoffer-koch-apartment/

 

 

 

In 2009, Norwegian student Kristoffer Koch was procrastinating from some school work when he came upon an offer to purchase some Bitcoin, the unregulated online currency that he (as well as much of the computer-literate population) knew very little about at the time.

Intrigued by the idea of what he considered "fake money," he spent 150 kroner ($26.50 USD) on the stuff, and walked away with 5,000 bitcoins.

He logged out of the exchange site and essentially forgot about the purchase, until, of course, Bitcoin became the biggest thing on the Internet this spring.

Reminded of his purchase, Koch rummaged up his bitcoin password and logged into his bitcoin banking site. Once in, he learned that his $26.50 investment had grown into an $885,520 USD value.

He was rich and didn't even know it. His girlfriend, who'd given him more than enough crap for "buying a lot of technical little things that [he] never had time to use," had her foot planted firmly in her mouth.

Koch cashed one-fifth of his 5,000 bitcoin and used the money to buy an apartment in Toyen, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Oslo. And his girlfriend, he says, now believes he "should be allowed to buy the things I want."

[Npoess]

Like a Norwegian needs anymore money...

[Alcofribas]

lol @ throwing the girlfriend under the bus there.

[Friendly Foil]

This has inspired me to spend all my money on bitcoins. So that's what I just did. Time to pray.

[Npoess]

Krokodil is a better investment, all the kids are crazy about that shit.

[Guest fiznuthian]

I find this bitcoin situation absolutely fascinating... I also seriously regret not running the miner endlessly back when bitcoin first began. Would I be a millionaire too?
There's a side of me that wants really badly to watch the US dollar die a horrible fiat death under the weight of bitcoin's stability. I want the feds to scramble in an attempt to control and regulate the uncontrollable and anonymous cryptocurrencies.

Also, here's a great talk that I watched with a guy who seems to know what's going down:

[youtubehd]JP9-lAYngi4[/youtubehd]

Maybe someone here is more knowledgeable on the subject but I found his dinner chat highly entertaining and informative. He doesn't seem to take extreme views about bitcoin either, just that it in many ways is a viable currency and is a genuine threat to popular government regulated currencies. Doesn't sound outrageous to me, and the fact that one bitcoin easily exchanges to 175+ US dollars right now just blows my mind.

[Guest fiznuthian]

FUCK!
Bitcoin raised even more since I last checked..

According to Preev, 1 BTC exchanges to $201.1 USD.
Last I checked 2-3 weeks ago, it was at $175-180 ish..

[psn]

 

http://www.dailydot.com/business/bitcoin-kristoffer-koch-apartment/

 

 

 

used the money to buy an apartment in Toyen, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Oslo.

 

 

Tøyen is far from a posh neigbourhood, for the record. On the contrary, it's seeing quite a few of the typical inner city challenges.

[zazen]

I find this bitcoin situation absolutely fascinating... I also seriously regret not running the miner endlessly back when bitcoin first began. Would I be a millionaire too?

 

Thing is, if it was obvious back then that this strange cryptocurrency would do so well then everyone would have bought in.

 

There's no point kicking yourself for missing a far-from-obvious high risk long shot.

 

I think Bitcoin has a useful future (its particularly useful in developing countries etc) but don't go ploughing all your cash into it now just because you think you missed an opportunity.

 

Its an interesting investment to consider, but don't put in more than you can affort to lose. Bitcoin is likely to remain volatile for some time to come.

 

The stories of people who bought some coins back in 2009 and then lost the wallet files are interesting though, eg this guy on reddit

[zazen]

For the technically or economically minded, I highly recommend that paper that started the whole thing:

 

"Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System"

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

 

The introductory paragraphs about the inefficiencies of trust-based systems are fascinating.

[foresense]

was mining bitcoins a few years ago with my then new Radeon HD5700, but I only managed to mine 1 or 2 bitcoins so I gave up eventually; It was about 20$ per bitcoin back then. wish I hadn't stopped lol.. I'm sure I have my key lying around somewhere, nice little bonus when I find it :)

[Guest fiznuthian]

 

I find this bitcoin situation absolutely fascinating... I also seriously regret not running the miner endlessly back when bitcoin first began. Would I be a millionaire too?

 

Thing is, if it was obvious back then that this strange cryptocurrency would do so well then everyone would have bought in.

 

There's no point kicking yourself for missing a far-from-obvious high risk long shot.

 

I think Bitcoin has a useful future (its particularly useful in developing countries etc) but don't go ploughing all your cash into it now just because you think you missed an opportunity.

 

Its an interesting investment to consider, but don't put in more than you can affort to lose. Bitcoin is likely to remain volatile for some time to come.

 

The stories of people who bought some coins back in 2009 and then lost the wallet files are interesting though, eg this guy on reddit

 

 

Yeah, you're right.. It seemed such a dreamy idea then.

I feel like there's quite a few folks out there sitting on a mound of bitcoins now.

Thanks for the link to the original paper. Will read through it :)

 

[goDel]

lol @ throwing the girlfriend under the bus there.

Lol yeah.

This is exactly why i think it's a bullshit story.

 

And the story behind it is that some Norwegian college kid having spent some money on a couple of bitcoins, and who's having problems with his gf, thought he could make some money by generating some newsstory to attract some new buyers into the bitcoin scheme....?!

[Guest zaphod]

he really showed his girlfriend. let this be a lesson to anyone who advises a loved one not to irresponsibly throw money at things that won't pay off. less than 1% of the time, it might. what a stupid bitch.

[Guest cult fiction]

You might invest in Litecoin instead, the current outlook for it is a bit ambiguous but as BitCoin attracts more scrutiny from the media and authorities some folks might switch.