HOME CATEGORIES WRITE AND EARN 🔍
CATEGORIES WRITE AND EARN MORE

CRYPTO NEWS

Your favorite crypto news blog

‘I’d Be A Billionaire Now’ — Early Bitcoiner Regrets Selling 50,000 Bitcoins Before 2012

Bitcoin 2020/12/18 23:08 by Brenda Ngari
‘I’d Be A Billionaire Now’ — Early Bitcoiner Regrets Selling 50,000 Bitcoins Before 2012

The price of bitcoin recently soared beyond $23,000 after effortlessly taking out the $20,000 psychologically important level. The recent upsurge means that MicroStrategy’s holdings have doubled in value since the business intelligence firm invested millions into the cryptocurrency back in September when the flagship cryptocurrency was still hovering sub-$11,000.

But, not every large investor has made out like a bandit. In a series of tweets on Friday, early bitcoin investor Martti Malmi recently revealed that he sold 50,000 bitcoins more than eight years ago and has essentially missed out on over $1 billion in profit. Malmi, who is also a pioneer bitcoin developer, mined the BTC on his personal laptop in the period between 2009 and 2010 and sold it before 2012. At the current prices, the same amount would be worth $1.1 billion today.

Malmi, however, didn’t liquidate his mammoth BTC cache for nothing. He was able to quit his “boring” junior software developer job and move to Japan for several months to study the Japanese language. While in Japan, he visited the office belonging to Mt. Gox crypto exchange way before it suffered the infamous hack.

Malmi sold over 10,000 BTC in 2011 when the exchange rate for the cryptocurrency reached the $15-$30 range and used the proceeds to purchase a nice studio apartment in Helsinki at only 22 years of age. 

However, if he never sold his old bitcoin, he could have had so much more. The early bitcoin core developer regrets but he believes “with the early Bitcoiners we set in motion something greater than personal gain.”

In October 2011, he offered a 1000 BTC prize to anyone who would get a major business to accept bitcoin. This bounty was not claimed and he then decided to HODL the rest of his bitcoin holdings. Unfortunately, he was forced to sell most of his BTC at a painfully low rate of $5 per piece in 2012 as he hunted for a new job.

Although he missed out on the ten-figures worth of profits, Malmi still keeps some of his savings in bitcoin up to now. “That’s not much, but still nice gains over the years. Happy about the recent development,” he added.

Malmi has learned that although money matters, “you don’t need to be rich to lead a perfectly good life” as it is mostly about the basic things. More importantly, he is happy about his greater contribution to the bitcoin space. “You don’t live forever. Pursuing something greater than yourself brings meaning in life,” he summarized. 

0 Like(s)



You should also read...

Bitcoin 03/04/20 10:55 by Samuel Wan
Analysis: Bitcoin Could be Headed to $1,000 Amid Unexpected Liquidity Crisis
Since Black Thursday, which saw Bitcoin bottom at $4.6k on the day, the number one cryptocurrency has since been range-bound with strong resistance at the $6.8k level. Although it’s been able to...
Read More
Bitcoin 16/10/20 03:00 by Tony Spilotro
Coinbase Builds Into Bitcoin Ecosystem With Dev Grants, Wrapped BTC
San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has revealed two separate contributions to the Bitcoin ecosystem today. Here’s how the top crypto platform plans to boost the future of the f...
Read More
Bitcoin 08/02/21 14:13 by Yashu Gola
Tesla Invests $1.5B Worth of Bitcoin, SEC Filing Shows
Elon Musk’s Tesla invested $1.5 billion in Bitcoin, according to its latest filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The American vehicle giant reported that it changed its investm...
Read More
Bitcoin 15/02/21 14:29 by Yashu Gola
Bitcoin Handover to Rich Wallets Underway as Price Declines: Analyst
Bitcoin dipped on Monday after hitting a new record high in the previous session, pointing to a spike in profit-taking sentiment among daytraders. The analogy was visible in the statistics shared by a...
Read More
Bitcoin 11/03/21 21:00 by Tony Spilotro
How Oracle Not Buying BTC Is Still Bullish For Bitcoin
The most recent run-up in Bitcoin price was a front running of any potential corporate BTC buy revealed by cloud services company Oracle during its quarterly earnings call yesterday. When the call end...
Read More