Norwegian man finds forgotten $24 Bitcoin investment is worth $721,000

A forgotten investment of $24 into Bitcoins has earned a Norwegian man more than $700,000, shocking even the owner of the virtual fortune.

In 2009, when the mysterious online currency called Bitcoins first appeared, Kristoffer Koch was researching encryption, according to Agence France-Presse. He spent $24 on Bitcoins, and rarely thought about the money again until this year.

After reading the skyrocketing value of Bitcoins in headlines this spring, Koch remembered the small chunk of change he had squirreled away on his computer four years ago, he told the Norwegian news outlet NRK.

But he didn't remember his password. AFP reports he spent a day working out the lost encryption, and the effort was worth it — Koch's account contained 5,000 Bitcoins, worth about $721,464.00 CAD.

He cashed out a fifth of his money and bought a condominium in central Oslo.

"Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that they would have soared like this," Koch told Agence France-Presse.

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Others have made thoughtful investments into Bitcoins, mined them using their computers or stumbled into lucky investments worth millions of dollars. Bloomberg Businessweek spoke to three members of the so-called "Bitcoin millionaires' club," one of whom recalled the story of a friend who forgot he had a computer in his garage mining Bitcoins, then discovered their value had increased to $12 million.

This week, the world's first Bitcoin ATM opened in Vancouver, B.C.