Meet the man who invested $22 in Bitcoin when it launched and completely forgot about it.
Norwegian Kristoffer Koch was only 25 years old when Bitcoin was a completely new currency that no one really knew or understood.
Despite the risks and after being teased by his girlfriend for this frivolous purchase, Koch bought 5,000 Bitcoin for $22.
Years passed, Koch forgot about this investment and moved on with his life.
Behind the scenes, Bitcoin's value is increasing. When he recalls his $22 investment, four years have passed.
When he logged back in to check, the 29-year-old man's cryptocurrency wallet contained a lot of money.
In his cryptocurrency wallet, Koch now has a life-changing sum of $850,000.
Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that they would fly away like this,” he told local media in Norway.
“Strangely enough, these psychological reflexes cause us to attach a value to something that itself has no value.”
After discovering his small fortune, Koch used about a fifth of it to pay taxes and buy an apartment in Oslo. The rest he left reasonably untouched and is now even more valuable. While it may sound like a dream, it almost turned into a nightmare for the Norwegian when he couldn't remember the password to his cryptocurrency wallet.
Fortunately, after many failures, he finally succeeded.
But not everyone is equally lucky.
Stefan Thomas also fell into a similar situation. Thomas locked a staggering $240 million worth of Bitcoin in his cryptocurrency wallet, but unlike Koch, he had no chance of remembering his password.
The German-born programmer stored his Bitcoin on a hard drive, he had to try 10 times to find the password before it encrypted and locked him out forever.
As of today, he only has two more attempts to find his decades-old password before he loses his fortune.