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.
Kristoff 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 2013 rates it was about $886,000," Koch said.
Koch exchanged one fifth of his 5,000 Bitcoins, generating enough kroner to buy an apartment in Toyen, one of the Norwegian capital's wealthier areas.