
Man buys $27 of bitcoin, finds they're now worth $886k - mootothemax
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/29/bitcoin-forgotten-currency-norway-oslo-home
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csomar
Assets are really weird. To make money you have to go to work. To save lots of
money ($886k) you have to really push hard: Have a high-end job (at Google or
a Big.Co.), have a university degree (better with a phD) and spend 20 years or
more of your life to make that amount.

But somehow this guy made the same amount without putting really any effort or
taking any risks. It's like inheritance when you are suddenly rich and
collected all these years efforts.

What I'm trying to convey is that living without any assets is pretty darn
hard in today life. As many (the majority) of people are inheriting wealth
from their grand-parents and countries, they find life much easier.

I guess this also made life more expensive. Since they have the assets, this
group can raise the prices (virtually) infinitely. They can exchange assets
between each other, but people who are new to the game will be screwed.

I think the same thing is happening to Bitcoins. It's becoming too expensive
that we'll see the 0.01% and the remaining of the 100%. It'll be probably as
worse or much worse than real life.

~~~
SEMW
> 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).

~~~
csomar
The guy is living in a Norwegian country. So $27 is probably the price of a
meal in an expensive restaurant. I'm assuming he didn't make any investment
but was rather curious how this thing work and wanted to hold some of this
digital currency.

If he was making an investment, he'd have probably followed and tracked it.
That was not the case. He just found out about it.

Otherwise, my comment wasn't about that particular detail.

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saraid216
FYI, there's only one Norwegian country. It's Norway.

~~~
rwfilice
Minnesota?

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kitcar
This article really just tells the story that when there is a fixed supply of
something, and demand increases, price increases of that thing. In some cases
people have that thing stored in their attic and forget about it, in which
case they get a pleasant surprise that they now can trade it for a greater
value than they first purchased it for (assuming there is liquidity in the
market).

Granted - the speed of the price increase of Bitcoin is very impressive -
other examples from history:

\- Man buys $27 of Gold Coins, finds they're now worth $886K

\- Man buys $27 of Tulips, finds they're now worth $886K

\- Man buys $27 of Railroad shares, finds they're now worth $887K

\- Man buys $27 of (insert .com boom company) Shares, finds they're now worth
$886K

\- Man buy $27 of Beanie Babies, finds they're now worth $886K

~~~
oleganza
Except there are many more people who earned a lot on Bitcoin purposefully,
not by accident.

~~~
kitcar
I think what you're suggesting is there are more people speculating on
bitcoin's value than the value of some of these other examples - that is
probably accurate, as in many ways the barriers to entry to start speculating
on the value of bitcoin are low.

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cruise02
Someone bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin in 2009. So... that's looking
like a wise investment.

[http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/)

(From the 20/20 hindsight department.)

~~~
SEMW
> So... that's looking like a wise investment.

Article claims it was "the first real-world bitcoin transaction". Without
those first few transactions from enthusiasts, bitcoin may well not have
taking off. And those 10,000 wouldn't have been Laszlo's only bitcoins. So
from that POV, maybe it was a pretty wise investment :)

~~~
cruise02
That is a good point, bitcoins would be worthless if no one had been willing
to spend them. It makes me wonder if buying those pizzas was a hard decision,
or if it was just an impulse buy.

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snorkel
Remember this day when explaining the Bitcoin Bubble to your kids.

~~~
MrZongle2
At this rate, the kids will ask "what's a Bitcoin?" and you'll respond "shut
up and eat your rat...it's almost time for Two Minutes Hate."

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altoz
Bitcoins are reaching lottery-level payoffs. In 5 years, will be see a lot
more of these stories?

~~~
oleganza
In 5 years it'll become world currency and in 10 years all other currencies
will hyperinflate relative to it and will be abandoned. Gold will go down too
as more people will learn that Bitcoin is more flexible way of "storing
wealth".

~~~
slig
Knowing the bitcoin fanboys, I can't really tell if you're being sarcastic or
not.

~~~
oleganza
Send me a message on oleganza@gmail.com (twitter: @oleganza) in 5 years and
ask for 1 BTC if Bitcoin is not yet recognized as international financial
instrument. I will gladly give it to you if BTC price is below $10000 or it's
still not possible to pay in Bitcoin in any major city for about anything.

~~~
slig
Thanks for the offer!
[http://i.imgur.com/UnOIGpT.png](http://i.imgur.com/UnOIGpT.png)

I hope Google doesn't kill Calendar before 2018.

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seanv
lol enjoyed the comments section

shirotsku 29 October 2013 2:31pm

"Go back in time to the 80s. Buy shares in Apple. Sell shares in 2009. Buy
BitCoins. Sell BitCoins in 2013. Profit."

JenniDark "Directions unclear. Bought Blackberry shares. Now what?"

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oleganza
Only this year Bitcoin price went up from $14 to $200 and counting. The all-
time high $266 (this April) can be reached once again before Christmas.

~~~
JonFish85
So could the $14 mark.

~~~
oleganza
Let's bet on that. I can put 1 BTC that the price by the end of the year will
be greater than $266. If it's below $14 I'll pay you 19 BTC or more
(equivalent of $266 at the current prices).

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fdanconia
Worth $886K to whom? It's worth nothing if you can't find a buyer (a la what
happened temporarily in the housing markets).

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MHBerryman
I spent the last year of my bachelors mining, earned something like £6 worth
of Bitcoins and decided I would never spend them and donated to archive.org.

Shortly after the price skyrocketed... safe to say the biggest donation I've
made to date. Oh well, can only hope it is helping them out!

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jawr
This article briefly mentions the Silk Road "bust"; wasn't there much
speculation that they could not actually seize his money because of the crypto
nature? Does that mean they got his key?

~~~
oleganza
The bigger story about SR is that Bitcoin price did not collapse 10x after the
shutdown. Which shows that Bitcoin is used as gold, speculative store of
wealth. And so it reasserts itself as a viable wealth transport.

~~~
ceejayoz
Why on earth would BTC collapse 10x after the SR shutdown? If anything, it'd
drive the value up as a significant portion of the money supply just
evaporated.

~~~
oleganza
That's also a way to look at it. But also consider that if there was
significant demand in BTC just to spend on Silk Road, it would go away after
SR is gone.

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zvrba
> to buy an apartment in Toyen, one of the Norwegian capital’s wealthier
> areas.

Most definitely not. It's more like an immigrant ghetto, together with
Grønland.

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hendi_
Sounds like my story... just that I've sold mine for $1k :)

~~~
rfnslyr
I have a lot of BTC lying around somewhere from way, WAY back when BTC was in
its infancy. It kills me everyday not knowing how to get it back. I've been
through a few computers so far and most of my data is gone.

Anyone know how to retrieve it?

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sejje
Take it to a data recovery expert?

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Sam121
Biggest news around the world. How people found such type of news with 100%
accuracy like 26.xyzasd $ Bit coins.

