Student Forgets $27 Bitcoin Purchase — Years Later, He’s Sitting on a Fortune

It sounds like something out of a movie, but for Kristoffer Koch, it was very real: a long-forgotten $27 investment ended up changing his life forever.

Back in 2009, Koch was just 25 years old and studying electrical engineering. While diving into research for a school project, he stumbled upon a new digital currency called Bitcoin. Intrigued by the concept laid out in Satoshi Nakamoto’s groundbreaking 2008 white paper, Koch decided to take a small risk—he spent roughly $27 (some sources say closer to $22) to buy 5,000 Bitcoins.

At the time, Bitcoin was nothing more than an experimental tech idea. Koch himself joked that one of the only things you could actually purchase with it back then was alpaca wool socks. With no real use for the coins, he quickly moved on and forgot all about the investment.

“I just carried on with life and focused on getting a proper job,” Koch told reporters, according to Binance Feed.

Then, in 2013, news of Bitcoin’s rising value started to make headlines. Curious, Koch searched through his old files, tracked down his digital wallet—and was stunned by what he found: it now held the equivalent of around $850,000.

That was over a decade ago. Today, if Koch had kept all 5,000 Bitcoins untouched, his initial $27 outlay would now be worth an astronomical $594.5 million—a return of more than 22 million percent.

But his story wasn’t without obstacles. Like many early adopters, Koch had forgotten his wallet’s password. Fortunately, after some effort, he managed to recover it—unlocking access to what would become a multi-million dollar windfall.

Later that year, Koch decided to sell about 20% of his holdings. After paying taxes, he used the proceeds to purchase a luxury apartment in Oslo. The remaining 80%? If he never sold, that portion alone would now be valued at over $475 million.

Reflecting on the unbelievable turn of events, Koch shared with Norwegian media:

“Never in my wildest imagination did I think something like this could happen. It’s strange how we assign value to things that, at one point, meant nothing.”

What began as a casual academic experiment became a once-in-a-lifetime stroke of luck—proof that sometimes, the smallest decisions can lead to the biggest outcomes.