Most people dream about suddenly coming into a fortune, but Kristoffer Koch lived that dream. In 2009, when he was 25 and studying technology, he discovered Bitcoin while researching for a school project. He decided to invest about $27, buying 5,000 Bitcoins, which back then seemed like an experiment. Bitcoin was new, and most people didn’t think it would ever gain real value.
Because Bitcoin had few uses then — jokingly, Kristoffer said you could only buy alpaca socks — he forgot about it and focused on finding a regular job. Four years later, after hearing about Bitcoin’s soaring price in the news, he checked his old digital wallet. To his amazement, the $27 had turned into roughly $850,000 by 2013.
If Kristoffer had kept all his Bitcoins until today, his investment would be worth around $594 million — over 22 million times what he first spent. Of course, retrieving the money wasn’t simple; he had forgotten his wallet password but eventually managed to unlock his fortune.
After cashing out 20% of his holdings in 2013 and paying taxes, he bought a luxury apartment in Oslo. If he left the rest untouched, those coins would now be worth more than $475 million.
Kristoffer called the experience surreal, explaining how we tend to assign value to things beyond their real worth. What started as a simple school project ended up changing his life forever—a reminder that sometimes curiosity and a little risk pay off in unimaginable ways.
