

Norwegian student buys $27 in bitcoin in 2009, now owns an apartment - Sealy
http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/norwegian-student-kristoffer-koch-buys-27-in-bitcoin-in-2009-now-he-owns-an-apartment/story-e6frfmd9-1226748159679

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mendelsd
This guy's approach reminds me of Taleb's barbell strategy of investment:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Philosoph...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb#Philosophical_theories)
(described more thoroughly in his 'Black Swan' book). Basically: put ~90% of
your money into stuff that's as safe as can be, and put the rest into highly
speculative bets with a large upside.

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sireat
The buyer actually was not investing in the sense Taleb describes. The buyer
was simply lucky enough to be studying cryptography in 2009 (not in <2007 or
2011>) and saw a cool new approach.

He did not buy with the intention of huge upside else he would have taken a
more prudent approach to securing his coins.

How many had heard of bitcoin until the first slashdot article or first reddit
appearance? How many missed those and only heard about it when the first
newspaper articles appeared?

Unless you were lucky enough to be following certain cryptography related
mailing lists, chances of you coming accross bitcoin were close to nil until
2010.

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tedunangst
Well that settles it. I'm sold. Just bought myself a bitcoin. Looking forward
to moving into my new house in 2017.

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helpfulElf
Crowd funding sites should leap on this story; that's the dream..

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kilovoltaire
I might be missing something—how is this related to crowd funding?

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logn
Buy stock low, sell it high?

It's all gambling. Sometimes you know you can beat the game. Sometimes it's
for fun. People shouldn't get depressed when they miss a wacky investment that
pays off big. Plenty of people lose their shirts doing that.

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Sealy
The article mentions that exactly, "He bought some for fun, then forgot about
it."

Fair play to him for doing so! I guess he must have been in luck when the
topic for his thesis lead him to Bitcoin. I bet he's glad he studied!

