Bitcoin

[TingTong]

Zero Hedge: Winklevoss Twins Revealed As Owning 1% Of All BitCoins

Think the 75% plunge in BitCoin values in two days has crushed all former supporters of the virtual currency (which truth be told is only back to levels from a month ago)? Wrong. As the NYT reports, a very unexpected supporting genepool (split into two identical halves) has emerged in the shape of two names previously linked to yet another pre-bubble frenzy name, FaceBook: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (collectively, the "Winklevii"). Following stints as Olympic rowers, Simpsons characters, and antagonistic Facebook litigants, the two 31 year-old identical twins are now indirect investors in the latest "currency" craze, whose heyday may well have come and gone, courtesy of owning a whopping 1% stake in all of the entire outstanding supply of BitCoin which at last count was worth $1.3 billion (if maybe a little less now).

NY Times: Never Mind Facebook; Winklevoss Twins Rule in Digital Money

An array of speculators have now bid up the price of the bitcoin to the point where the outstanding supply of the digital money was worth $1.3 billion at last count. The Winklevii — as they are popularly known — say they own nearly 1 percent of that, or some $11 million.

The decision by the brothers to go public with their position signals a new stage for what has been an experimental alternative to national currencies. Created in 2009 by a programmer or programmers known only by a pseudonym, the bitcoin world has been dominated by anonymous programmers and traders.

The 6-foot-5 Winklevii were unfazed by the latest tumult. Indeed, the brothers said they used the low prices to buy more. They argue that bitcoin will have much further to soar once a broader audience sees its virtues: a unit of exchange that can be moved around the world at the click of a button without requiring any payments to Western Union or American Express.

“People say it’s a Ponzi scheme, it’s a bubble,” said Cameron Winklevoss. “People really don’t want to take it seriously. At some point that narrative will shift to ‘virtual currencies are here to stay.’ We’re in the early days.”

The brothers began dabbling in bitcoin last summer when the dollar value of a single coin was still in the single digits. In addition to the purchase of bitcoins, they also say they have invested in a bitcoin-related company, but declined to disclose which one. The currency itself exists as a string of letters and numbers. In order to keep their holdings secure from hackers, they have taken those codes off networked computers and saved them on small flash drives. They said they have put the drives in safe deposit boxes at banks in three different cities.

 

[redwing]

Man buys $27 of bitcoin, forgets about them, finds they're now worth $886k

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.

Kristoffer 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 today's rates it's about NOK5m ($886,000)," Koch told NRK.

 

[chindonly]

Imagine if he bought a $1K of them!

 

[chindonly]

About $33 Million!

 

[dex]

http://m.theage.com.au/business/mar...0-after-us-senate-hearing-20131119-2xs0d.html

About $33 Million!

About $46 million after today's 40% surge due to a US Senate committee confirming its a legal means of exchange. It's up 404% in the last 2 months.

 

[John_]

One good opportunity could set you up for life.

 

[attrill]

400% rise in 2 months?? It's sounding like a bubble to me but then who knows?

Perhaps it is on its way to $10,000.

I wonder if the twins still have all theirs?