
Meet the Man Traveling the World on $25M of Bitcoin Profits - ca98am79
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bishopjordan/2017/07/07/bitcoin-millionaire/#373f81116261
======
watertorock
Tldr: bought bitcoin in 2010 and got lucky sitting on it

I find these story of stories silly but also indicative of the market. We are
in a crytpocurrency mania and these read like the "Meet the 25 year old dot
com millionaire who bought stock in valinux/webvan/pets.com/etc!" from 1998
that dragged even more nontechnical people into the manic runup then.

All I know is people that I'd never expect to know what bitcoin is are
suddenly talking about it. What's that tell you?

~~~
pmorici
"What's that tell you?"

It's about to go mainstream.

~~~
fapjacks
It "already" went mainstream in 2012-2013. This is a second speculation
bubble. It tells you to get out before it comes crashing down, because it
will.

~~~
pmorici
No, I don't think you understand the scale we are talking about here if this
becomes a world wide common digital currency. Your political dogma is getting
in the way of you understanding what Bitcoin's real potential is.

~~~
danmaz74
Bitcoin will never become the "world wide common digital currency": it's
deflationary in the long term, very volatile int he short term, and
transactions are expensive and slow. Maybe some other cryptocurrency could,
but not bitcoin.

It could stay as a store of value though, like gold.

~~~
pmorici
"it's deflationary in the long term"

Whether or not you think that matters is political dogma.

"very volatile int he short term"

Looking at the one year time scale BTC/USD is only about 2-3x as volatile as
USD/EUR. Bitcoin volatility in general has been trending DOWN since it's
inception as you would expect something to become more stable as the market
matures and more people adopt it.

[https://www.investing.com/tools/forex-volatility-
calculator](https://www.investing.com/tools/forex-volatility-calculator)
[https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-
index/](https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-index/)

"transactions are expensive and slow"

By what standard? A typical transaction costs less than a dollar and takes
about 10 minutes. Once the people holding the block size hostage are out of
the way you can expect the cost to return to cents and the speed to be more
reliable at 10 minutes or less.

Anyone who thinks Bitcoin can be a store of value like Gold w/o having utility
as money is fooling themselves. You need to both.

~~~
danmaz74
> Looking at the one year time scale BTC/USD is only about 2-3x as volatile as
> USD/EUR

Are you kidding? BTC/USD easily has 10%+ swings in a day, and 300% in a year.

------
puranjay
I sold a domain back in 2011 where the buyer offered to pay via Bitcoin. It
was a decent sized transaction. I don't remember the exact exchange rate but
it would have likely been upwards of 1,000 BTC.

I took cash instead.

I still look back on that and think "what if?"

~~~
chrissnell
At least you sold it. I registered a bunch of great domains when I was a
college freshman in 1993. They were free to register, you only had to submit a
form via email. I had, amongst others:

grateful.com eleet.com cjs.com snell.com

When Network Solutions won the contract to administer them, they started
charging $70/year/domain and I was a poor student and let almost all of them
lapse. I lost all of those ones. The only ones I kept were bikeworld.com
(registered it for my dad's company) and chrissnell.com. Never made a dime off
a domain.

~~~
puranjay
I used to trade domains back when I was in college in 2007 (before the market
crashed in 2008). It was still wildly lucrative. You could buy a domain for
$10k one day and sell it for $30k two days later.

A lot of people had similar stories: they registered Cars.com or some other
major domain back in the 90s, sold it for peanuts, and watched with dismay as
it was eventually flipped for 7 figures 10 years later.

I know a guy who, on a whim, registered about 100 double-letter domains
(AB.com, AC.com, etc.), then let them expire.

Each of those would be worth a minimum of $250k today

------
hkmurakami
>Mr. Smith—who asked me to conceal his real name

Thank goodness, since being identified is basically asking to be kidnapped
depending on which countries he is visiting.

~~~
ilugaslifk
How is this significantly different than any other publicly extremely wealthy
person?

... I guess liquidity?

~~~
windlep
It's worse than just liquidity, if he can unlock his wallet on his phone to
verify it and its balance on the spot.... not only is it liquid but he's
effectively carrying it on himself in cash at all times.

At least it's only $2.5 million or so remaining, since the rest is now likely
in assets that require more effort than merely access to this person+phone
(and attempts to rob a person of assets in a bank are usually more traceable
than stealing bitcoin). Still seems a bit crazy though.

~~~
xur17
If he's smart he's storing his remaining balance in safety deposit boxes, etc
rather than all on his phone.

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rv77ax
The only question on my mind: where did he cash his money? Or, who has big
cash to redeem his Bitcoin with million dollars transaction?

~~~
Veratyr
It's unlikely that he did it in a single transaction, he more likely split it
up over a few days. Even a year ago, Bitcoin daily exchange volume was ~$160M,
so he wouldn't have had _too_ many problems.

------
joelrunyon
Anyone else bothered that we didn't actually get to "meet" this anonymous
dude?

~~~
drewmol
Yes, I was slightly bothered.

------
pen2l
Isn't Satoshi probably a billionaire?

Now THAT is an interesting story. The guy must go through the struggle of
fighting against cashing in every single day. Fun to ponder.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Yes, but thanks to the "feature" of a wallet if he ever lost his computer
without a backup that money is effectively gone.

~~~
pmarreck
There are a million ways you can hide information securely (like a private
key), and it's far easier than hiding gold. And only an idiot would keep a
cryptocoin wallet on 1 computer with no backup.

You put your money in a bank and it's no longer _your_ money. Trust me, I had
my main bank account locked up for an entire month due merely to (groundless)
suspicion (basically, I made too much legitimate money too quickly (!!)). And
then, Simple.com closed my account without warning, apparently due to
violating TOS by not using it for "personal use only", which was total
bullshit (messing up payments in transit AND not getting back to me for DAYS
about where the hell they put my money:
[https://twitter.com/pmarreck/status/739994477339758592](https://twitter.com/pmarreck/status/739994477339758592))!!
Don't think for ONE SECOND that your bank money and your credit will always be
accessible to you (not to mention fraud, identity theft, and other things that
are not possible with cryptocurrencies). There're plenty of cases of some
government dipping into accounts and helping themselves. If you think your
money is safer in a bank than in a properly-secured private key, you're pretty
naïve.

~~~
jjeaff
At least in the US, the worst case is a temporary lockup like you described.
Banks are limited in how long they can hold your money. If your money is in a
bank, it is guaranteed from fraud and theft.

You can't say that about Bitcoin. Add to that the fact that if you want to use
Bitcoin to buy most anything you are going to have to either rely on a bank to
handle transfers or find someone on the street with cash to buy the Bitcoin
(dangerous with no guarantees).

------
jcslzr
Math guy explains bitcoin: [https://youtu.be/bBC-
nXj3Ng4](https://youtu.be/bBC-nXj3Ng4)

~~~
nosuchthing
Math guy neglected to mention the ponzi scheme aspect of these cryptocoins,
where the early adopters amass large quantities of coins for no reason other
then running the software for a short duration and significantly lower cost of
processing cycles, all by design.

Rubes trading excessive amounts of fiat cash for digital tokens are baffling,
and a testament to how deranged economics can get simply by assuming an asset
is rare or desirable.

~~~
Jabanga
There's nothing ponzi schemish about that. The cost of mining is proportional
to competition for new coins. Not much different than any other resource
extraction.

~~~
nosuchthing
The irony here is the "resource" being created by processing cycles is not
rare. This is evident by the 800+ variations of cryptocoins. Often times,
designers have chosen to 'premine' large sums of coins which are sold off
directly for a set price, which then is arbitrary raised because people
falsely believe these things are rare.

It's a ponzi scheme in a loose sense, as early adopters produced and acquired
large sums of arbitrary numbers written to a database and _by design_ , as
time passes later users running the same software on an equally powerful
machine are "rewarded" with smaller numbers written to the database.

The entire service, and minting/production of database token/coins are
reproducible simply by forking or running a new genesis block with the same
protocol.

Denying the inherent ponzi scheme payouts designed into the early cryptocoin
protocols is neglect or delusional at best, and at worst, purely deceptive.

~~~
Jabanga
Of course the resources are rare. Each cryptocoin is unique to the network
that backs it. The network is more than the open source software of the
clients. It's also the blockchain itself, which is made more difficult to
reverse through proof of work, and the userbase that uses the
network/blockchain to transact value.

Something being cheap at first, and then becoming more expensive as demand for
it increases, doesn't make it a ponzi scheme. By such a definition, any stock
that saw its value increase would be a ponzi scheme.

The assertion of it being a ponzi scheme is pure ignorance at best, and at
worse, intentional deception and defamation.

~~~
nosuchthing
For historical context:

    
    
      June 12, 2010, 08:14:44 PM
    
    
      This is an open offer by the way.. I will trade 10,000 BTC 
      for 2 of these pizzas any time as long as I have the funds 
      (I usually have plenty).  If anyone is interested please 
      let me know.  The exchange is favorable for anyone who 
      does it because the 2 pizzas are only about 25 dollars 
      total, maybe 30 if you give the guy a nice tip.  If you 
      get me the upgraded extra large ones or something, I can 
      throw in some more bitcoins, just let me know and we'll 
      work something out.
    
    
      My 1 year old daughter really enjoys pizza too!  She just 
      smears it all over her face if you give her a whole slice, 
      but she does eventually manage to get most of it in her 
      mouth (minus a few loose toppings of course).
    

If you pay actual money for bitcoins to people who've generated thousands of
coins for running a piece of software circa 2010, then you've really earned
your "investment" into the pyramid of blockchain hype ;)

Source:
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1195#msg1195](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1195#msg1195)

~~~
Jabanga
It's called appreciation. It has happened to numerous assets. The definition
of good investing is buying low and selling high. You're implying that
something that produces investment returns beyond a amount is a ponzi scheme,
which is absurd, and transparently so. You and I both know cryptocurrency
doesn't meet the definition of a ponzi scheme. The only question is what's
motivating you to make these false representations.

------
3131s
I had a couple thousand Bitcoin once, but then I bought a lot of drugs :(

I calculate how much it would have been worth every once and a while --
obviously it's been 1+ million USD for a while now. Alas, I actually need to
work to get money.

~~~
feelix
Buying drugs is arguably the most efficient use of money. Considering that the
only reason we purchase things is to ultimately get more endorphins released
by our brains. Drugs can directly hack that system.

~~~
trevyn
Short-term efficient, yes. Long-term efficient, no.

------
jcsnv
I wonder how he sold it and if any taxes were paid on it

