He Spent $27 on Bitcoin—and Forgot About It. Years Later, He Was a Millionaire
In 2009, 25-year-old Kristoffer Koch made a spontaneous decision after reading Bitcoin’s original whitepaper
by Satoshi Nakamoto. Out of curiosity, he spent around $27 to buy 5,000 Bitcoins, a risky and futuristic move at the time.
Back then, there wasn’t much to buy with Bitcoin—aside from alpaca socks—so Koch forgot about the investment entirely,
focusing instead on building his career. But four years later, when Bitcoin began gaining value, he remembered his old wallet and checked the balance.
To his shock, his $27 investment had ballooned to $850,000. After struggling to remember his password,
he finally accessed the funds. Koch sold a fifth of his holdings, paid taxes, and bought a luxury apartment in Oslo.
Fast forward to today, and the value of those 5,000 Bitcoins could be worth over $594 million, making his $27 investment
one of the most profitable in history. Koch later said: “Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that they would have soared like this.”
His story is a powerful reminder of how unpredictable technology—and fortune—can be.
