2013-10-26 news.com.au: Norwegian student buys $27 in BTC, now he owns apartment

[Arvicco]

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

It was 2009 and he was working on his thesis about encryption when he came across the mysterious currency. He bought some for fun, then forgot about it.
Fast-forward to April 2013, when the value of bitcoins started to soar. The internet currency received widespread media coverage, and Mr Koch remembered he had bought a few bitcoins years ago, NRK reports. "I thought to myself, didn't I have something like that?" Mr Koch said.
He started searching frantically for his password, which he had encrypted. When he finally worked out the correct combination to unlock it, he found a very pleasant surprise. "It said 5000 bitcoins there. Measuring that in today's rates it's about 5 million kroner ($885,520)," he said.
He cashed in about one fifth of his bitcoins, and it was enough for him to buy an apartment in Toyen, one of the richer parts of Norway's capital Oslo.
His partner was initially sceptical about him spending "real money" on "fake money". She has since changed her tune.
"She thinks I spend money on a bunch of crap. I buy a lot of technical little things that I never have time to use, and this was the worst of all, the fact that I was buying fake money," Mr Koch said. And now? "She says that I should be allowed to buy the things I want."

[Spaceman_Spiff]

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

squirrel-style buy-and-hold.
Lucky bastard ! 

[Shermo]

I sent this to my girlfriend, maybe she will stop bugging me when I buy useless things I doubt it though!

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Still, the image with no fees is misleading. You can choose to send without a fee, but it could end up being the worst decision ever.

[kjlimo]

wonder how many others are out there like this, haha

[zeroday]

I hope he's left at least a half of his bitcoins untouched.
After next four years he would have an island with own villa, yacht and aircraft bought directly with BTC.

[Arvicco]

With BTC rate high enough, I envision a field of "Bitcoin treasure hunters" developing. People will just hunt down and buy pre-2012 PCs and hard/CD/flash drives on an off-chance that they were used in early Bitcoin mining and contain unredeemed/abandoned coins. Even the slightest chance to recover a couple of BTC every once in a while will be enough to finance such endeavors.

[qwk]

With BTC rate high enough, I envision a field of "Bitcoin treasure hunters" developing. People will just hunt down and buy pre-2012 PCs and hard/CD/flash drives on an off-chance that they were used in early Bitcoin mining and contain unredeemed/abandoned coins. Even the slightest chance to recover a couple of BTC every once in a while will be enough to finance such endeavors.

That would probably be unprofitable no matter how much a bitcoin is in dollars.
Scrounging around on possibly millions on hard drives, usb sticks etc. would be extremely expensive because there's no way to completely automate the process. There will always be some manual labor involved with hooking things up etc.

[Arvicco]

That would probably be unprofitable no matter how much a bitcoin is in dollars.
Scrounging around on possibly millions on hard drives, usb sticks etc. would be extremely expensive because there's no way to completely automate the process. There will always be some manual labor involved with hooking things up etc.

Yes, this is both manual and creative process - hence "treasure hunters". Finding historic gold treasures is also very much manual and creative. It's not like "black archeologists" are digging just about everywhere - there are ways to identify sites with most probability of success. Like trying to track down old computer hardware that was in possession of known geeks in 2009-2011, perhaps? Yeah, creepy, I know... but quite likely once BTC rates shoot past 100K USD per.

[prophetx]

woah glad he found them

i read another story of a guy who had formatted a drive with a smaller but still significant amount in current terms...

[qwk]

That would probably be unprofitable no matter how much a bitcoin is in dollars.
Scrounging around on possibly millions on hard drives, usb sticks etc. would be extremely expensive because there's no way to completely automate the process. There will always be some manual labor involved with hooking things up etc.

Yes, this is both manual and creative process - hence "treasure hunters". Finding historic gold treasures is also very much manual and creative. It's not like "black archeologists" are digging just about everywhere - there are ways to identify sites with most probability of success. Like trying to track down old computer hardware that was in possession of known geeks in 2009-2011, perhaps? Yeah, creepy, I know... but quite likely once BTC rates shoot past 100K USD per.

Okay, now I get it. Nice idea, probably one could narrow down the search to computers from computer science labs at universities etc.

And there's always ye goode olde pirate's treasure maps, where X marks the wallet! Harrr!

[Akka]

That would probably be unprofitable no matter how much a bitcoin is in dollars.
Scrounging around on possibly millions on hard drives, usb sticks etc. would be extremely expensive because there's no way to completely automate the process. There will always be some manual labor involved with hooking things up etc.

Yes, this is both manual and creative process - hence "treasure hunters". Finding historic gold treasures is also very much manual and creative. It's not like "black archeologists" are digging just about everywhere - there are ways to identify sites with most probability of success. Like trying to track down old computer hardware that was in possession of known geeks in 2009-2011, perhaps? Yeah, creepy, I know... but quite likely once BTC rates shoot past 100K USD per.

If the BTC Prices goes high enough I will build a giant Mausoleum with a Labyrinth including traps with my tomb at the center.

On my death bed I will swallow a BTC 10 casascius coin and have this made public through my last will a few month after I gut buried.

Muahaha.

*If Robotics is far enough by then it will also have a mechanical Minotaur to guard my Tomb.

[qwk]

On my death bed I will swallow a BTC 10 casascius coin and have this made public through my last will a few month after I gut buried.

Your gastric acid will have destroyed the private key long before your corpse can be found.

[Akka]

On my death bed I will swallow a BTC 10 casascius coin and have this made public through my last will a few month after I gut buried.

Your gastric acid will have destroyed the private key long before your corpse can be found.

That's the best part. In case some treasure Hunter actually makes it. There is no treasure 

[BitChick]

I sent this to my girlfriend, maybe she will stop bugging me when I buy useless things I doubt it though!

She will just be upset you did not buy Bitcoin at the beginning.   I would at least let her know that there is a reason you are buying them now though!

[Carlton Banks]

*If Robotics transgenics  is far enough by then it will also have a mechanical an actual Minotaur to guard my Tomb.

FTFY 

[Birdy]

With BTC rate high enough, I envision a field of "Bitcoin treasure hunters" developing. People will just hunt down and buy pre-2012 PCs and hard/CD/flash drives on an off-chance that they were used in early Bitcoin mining and contain unredeemed/abandoned coins. Even the slightest chance to recover a couple of BTC every once in a while will be enough to finance such endeavors.

rofl, I've got exactly the same idea after reading that story today
The price is probably still too low for that yet though.