Man buys $27 of bitcoin, forgets about them, finds they're now worth $886k

[Bosonic]

The meteoric rise in bitcoin has meant that within the space of four years, one Norwegian man’s $27 investment turned into a forgotten $886,000 windfall.

Kristoffer Koch invested 150 kroner ($26.60) in 5,000 bitcoins in 2009, after discovering them during the course of writing a thesis on encryption. He promptly forgot about them until widespread media coverage of the anonymous, decentralised, peer-to-peer digital currency in April 2013 jogged his memory.

Bitcoins are stored in encrypted wallets secured with a private key, something Koch had forgotten. After eventually working out what the password could be, Koch got a pleasant surprise:

"It said I had 5,000 bitcoins in there. Measuring that in today's rates it's about NOK5m ($886,000)," Koch told NRK.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/29/bitcoin-forgotten-currency-norway-oslo-home

[annabanana]

1. Sell! . .. n/t

[ret5hd]

2. Now! Not tomorrow! Now!

[Initech]

3. Holy crap! How do I get in on this?

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. First, build your time machine

or, more easily, lay some bait to attract a time machine from the future, so that they come to see you - then you hijack it.

[Initech]

5. Where do I acquire the plutonium necessary to build a flux capacitor?

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I hear it's for sale on the dark internet

All you need to buy it is some bitcoins ....