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Meet the Man Traveling the World on $25M of Bitcoin Profits
- hkmurakami 9y ago>Mr. Smith—who asked me to conceal his real name Thank goodness, since being identified is basically asking to be kidnapped depending on which countries he is visiting.
- ilugaslifk 9y agoHow is this significantly different than any other publicly extremely wealthy person? ... I guess liquidity?
- windlep 9y agoIt's worse than just liquidity, if he can unlock his wallet on his phone to verify it and its balance on the spot.... not only is it liquid but he's effectively carrying it on himself in cash at all times. At least it's only $2.5 million or so remaining, since the rest is now likely in assets that require more effort than merely access to this person+phone (and attempts to rob a person of assets in a bank are usually more traceable than stealing bitcoin). Still seems a bit crazy though.
- Grustaf 9y agoThe difference is that people who got rich through business are already well known, so it’s too late for them. This guy has the option to stay hidden, so he takes it.
- rbudenebd 9y agoPeople who make $25b are well known. People who make $25m in business are not.
- Grustaf 9y agoNot as well known as Elon Musk obviously but with 25 m in the bank you're unlikely to be completely invisible like this guy. Someone is bound to know you exist.
- bitmapbrother 9y agoOn a side note, I recall a story told by Chris Pine being surprised by all of the bodyguards surrounding an extra on the set of Star Trek. That extra was Jeff Bezos who had a small part in the movie. Chris Pine had apparently never heard of him.
- 3131s 9y agoI had a couple thousand Bitcoin once, but then I bought a lot of drugs :( I calculate how much it would have been worth every once and a while -- obviously it's been 1+ million USD for a while now. Alas, I actually need to work to get money.
- omarchowdhury 9y ago2,000 BTC would be $5.1M
- feelix 9y agoBuying drugs is arguably the most efficient use of money. Considering that the only reason we purchase things is to ultimately get more endorphins released by our brains. Drugs can directly hack that system.
- omarchowdhury 9y agoDopamine outta wack, son. It's not always feel good.
- taneq 9y agoProbably cheaper to get a droud fitted.
- trevyn 9y agoShort-term efficient, yes. Long-term efficient, no.
- pen2l 9y agoIsn't Satoshi probably a billionaire? Now THAT is an interesting story. The guy must go through the struggle of fighting against cashing in every single day. Fun to ponder.
- vinchuco 9y agoI personally do not expect those figures to move anytime soon. My interpretation is that, if you're the architect of Bitcoin, moving this money could send the message of 'cashing out', affecting its perceived value.
- matt_wulfeck 9y agoYes, but thanks to the "feature" of a wallet if he ever lost his computer without a backup that money is effectively gone.
- pmarreck 9y agoThere are a million ways you can hide information securely (like a private key), and it's far easier than hiding gold. And only an idiot would keep a cryptocoin wallet on 1 computer with no backup. You put your money in a bank and it's no longer your money. Trust me, I had my main bank account locked up for an entire month due merely to (groundless) suspicion (basically, I made too much legitimate money too quickly (!!)). And then, Simple.com closed my account without warning, apparently due to violating TOS by not using it for "personal use only", which was total bullshit (messing up payments in transit AND not getting back to me for DAYS about where the hell they put my money: https://twitter.com/pmarreck/status/739994477339758592 https://twitter.com/pmarreck/status/739994477339758592)!! Don't think for ONE SECOND that your bank money and your credit will always be accessible to you (not to mention fraud, identity theft, and other things that are not possible with cryptocurrencies). There're plenty of cases of some government dipping into accounts and helping themselves. If you think your money is safer in a bank than in a properly-secured private key, you're pretty naïve.
- jjeaff 9y agoAt least in the US, the worst case is a temporary lockup like you described. Banks are limited in how long they can hold your money. If your money is in a bank, it is guaranteed from fraud and theft. You can't say that about Bitcoin. Add to that the fact that if you want to use Bitcoin to buy most anything you are going to have to either rely on a bank to handle transfers or find someone on the street with cash to buy the Bitcoin (dangerous with no guarantees).
- jcslzr 9y agoMath guy explains bitcoin: https://youtu.be/bBC-nXj3Ng4 https://youtu.be/bBC-nXj3Ng4
- nosuchthing 9y agoMath guy neglected to mention the ponzi scheme aspect of these cryptocoins, where the early adopters amass large quantities of coins for no reason other then running the software for a short duration and significantly lower cost of processing cycles, all by design. Rubes trading excessive amounts of fiat cash for digital tokens are baffling, and a testament to how deranged economics can get simply by assuming an asset is rare or desirable.
- aml183 9y agoCryptocurrency is not a ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme has an expectation that you'll be paid dividends or returns by the company you are investing in. Essentially, old investors are being paid by new investors. There is only one investment period for these tokens (eg. ICO).
- vinchuco 9y agoIt's not a Ponzi scheme. It may not be "fair" in the sense you put it, but it's not that.
- Jabanga 9y agoThere's nothing ponzi schemish about that. The cost of mining is proportional to competition for new coins. Not much different than any other resource extraction.
- nosuchthing 9y agoThe irony here is the "resource" being created by processing cycles is not rare. This is evident by the 800+ variations of cryptocoins. Often times, designers have chosen to 'premine' large sums of coins which are sold off directly for a set price, which then is arbitrary raised because people falsely believe these things are rare. It's a ponzi scheme in a loose sense, as early adopters produced and acquired large sums of arbitrary numbers written to a database and by design, as time passes later users running the same software on an equally powerful machine are "rewarded" with smaller numbers written to the database. The entire service, and minting/production of database token/coins are reproducible simply by forking or running a new genesis block with the same protocol. Denying the inherent ponzi scheme payouts designed into the early cryptocoin protocols is neglect or delusional at best, and at worst, purely deceptive.
- watertorock 9y agoTldr: bought bitcoin in 2010 and got lucky sitting on it I find these story of stories silly but also indicative of the market. We are in a crytpocurrency mania and these read like the "Meet the 25 year old dot com millionaire who bought stock in valinux/webvan/pets.com/etc!" from 1998 that dragged even more nontechnical people into the manic runup then. All I know is people that I'd never expect to know what bitcoin is are suddenly talking about it. What's that tell you?
- pmorici 9y ago"What's that tell you?" It's about to go mainstream.
- fapjacks 9y agoIt "already" went mainstream in 2012-2013. This is a second speculation bubble. It tells you to get out before it comes crashing down, because it will.
- 9to5isdead 9y agoOr to get ready to buy when it does. :)
- fapjacks 9y agoYes, this reflects my position: I'm out of all cryptocurrencies except for a small bit to fuel a couple side projects. I'm waiting for the coming crash so I can buy.
- pmorici 9y agoEveryone says that but when the crash actually happens they always get cold feet because the prevailing view is that Bitcoin is dead and done and never going to recover so they lose their nerve and don't follow through. But best of luck.
- puranjay 9y agoI sold a domain back in 2011 where the buyer offered to pay via Bitcoin. It was a decent sized transaction. I don't remember the exact exchange rate but it would have likely been upwards of 1,000 BTC. I took cash instead. I still look back on that and think "what if?"
- feelix 9y agoThe answer to that what if is you probably would have sold 80% of them at $30 each, and then most of the rest at $100 each like most people who got them early. Getting back 10x profit is hard to turn up when you have no idea of the future.
- chrissnell 9y agoAt least you sold it. I registered a bunch of great domains when I was a college freshman in 1993. They were free to register, you only had to submit a form via email. I had, amongst others: grateful.com eleet.com cjs.com snell.com When Network Solutions won the contract to administer them, they started charging $70/year/domain and I was a poor student and let almost all of them lapse. I lost all of those ones. The only ones I kept were bikeworld.com (registered it for my dad's company) and chrissnell.com. Never made a dime off a domain.
- puranjay 9y agoI used to trade domains back when I was in college in 2007 (before the market crashed in 2008). It was still wildly lucrative. You could buy a domain for $10k one day and sell it for $30k two days later. A lot of people had similar stories: they registered Cars.com or some other major domain back in the 90s, sold it for peanuts, and watched with dismay as it was eventually flipped for 7 figures 10 years later. I know a guy who, on a whim, registered about 100 double-letter domains (AB.com, AC.com, etc.), then let them expire. Each of those would be worth a minimum of $250k today
- joelrunyon 9y agoAnyone else bothered that we didn't actually get to "meet" this anonymous dude?
- drewmol 9y agoYes, I was slightly bothered.
- rv77ax 9y agoThe only question on my mind: where did he cash his money? Or, who has big cash to redeem his Bitcoin with million dollars transaction?
- Veratyr 9y agoIt's unlikely that he did it in a single transaction, he more likely split it up over a few days. Even a year ago, Bitcoin daily exchange volume was ~$160M, so he wouldn't have had too many problems.
- jcsnv 9y agoI wonder how he sold it and if any taxes were paid on it