Kristoffer Koch was writing a thesis on encryption in 2009 when he spent about $27 to buy 5,000 bitcoins.
Life went on, and he forgot about his investment until bitcoin’s wild price swings earlier this year resulted in a slew of articles about bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency that isn’t controlled by a central bank. Instead, bitcoins are created through a process called mining, in which a computer tries to solve a cryptographic problem. The total supply of bitcoins is capped, which has led to comparisons with assets like gold.
Koch’s original $27 investment is now worth about $886,000, Koch told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK. That’s a return of 3,281,500% in four years.
Koch has used one-fifth of his bitcoin stash to buy an apartment in Oslo, Norway, the Guardian reports.
