As bitcoin touched an all-time high this week, technology correspondent at the New York Times, Kashmir Hill, recalled how 10 BTC ($ 224k) spent for a sushi lunch for a couple of dozen strangers. Hill wrote about the dining experience in a recent article entitled “How To Bleed My Bitcoin on Sushi: My $ 200,000 Sushi Dinner.” In addition, early bitcoiner Martti Malmi wrote about how he sold 55,000 BTC which would now be worth over $ 1.2 billion.
Journalist Spends 10 BTC on Sushi Dinner With Strangers in 2013
The price of bitcoin (BTC) has climbed to new price heights this past week and a few people have been writing about spending coins in the early days.
For example, the well-known New York Times (NYT) technology columnist Kashmir Hill recently wrote about her experience living on bitcoins for a whole week in 2013. Hill said she spent $ 136 a penny on Coinbase at the time, and spent one night 10 BTC ($ 224k) on a sushi lunch.
“Back in May 2013, I spent in one night what would be worth about $ 200,000 today on raw fish and shrimp tempura rolls to people I had just met,” Hill said of her week-long crypto experience.
“I was a reporter in Forbes magazine at the time dealing with technology and privacy. Bitcoin had come on my radar as a privacy protection technology allowing people to make anonymous online purchases, much like paying cash in the real world. ”
On the last night of his week-long bitcoin spending spree, he decided to celebrate by having a sushi lunch at a place called the Sake Zone. He opened an invitation to complete strangers on Reddit and book a table for 15 or more in the Yung Chen Sake Zone.
Then years later after the spending experiment in 2020, Hill called restaurant owner Yung Chen to see how he was doing. Thanks to his merchant reception at the time including a 10 BTC Hill lunch, Chen managed to acquire about 41 BTC ($ 923,000). Chen and his wife decided to retire after being “tired of the long hours,” Hill wrote.
Sake Zone owner Yung Chen said:
The Bitcoin has become one of the major savings assets in my portfolio. It’s a lot. It’s close to like half a million dollars in my account.
Martti Malmi: ‘I would be a Millionaire Now if I hadn’t sold the 55,000 Bitcoins I Digged’
In another story, early bitcoiner Martti Malmi this week recalled how he would have been a billionaire had he not sold 55k BTC back in the day. Malmi was a Bitcoin developer between 2009 and 2011.
“I would be a * billionaire * now if I had not sold the 55,000 bitcoins I had mined on my laptop in 2009-2010 too early (mainly before 2012),” Malmi tweets on a Friday. “That’s unfortunate, but then again, with the early bitcoiners we set out to be nothing more than personal profit,” he added.
Malmi also recalled how he ran a bitcoin exchange for a while in 2010. “At the time, there was no established exchange rate, and I operated it more like a bitcoin faucet than a business, ending with 30,000 BTC at less, ”Malmi He said. The early bitcoin bidder said he had just more than two Papa John pizzas.
Malmi tweeted further:
In 2011 when the exchange rate peaked at $ 15- $ 30, I sold over 10,000 BTC to buy a fairly comfortable studio apartment near Helsinki. Big deal for a 22-year-old man who never got much money. Probably the most expensive studio in the world now, but at least I got more than 2 pieces.
Malmi recalled a time in 2011 when he offered a 1,000 BTC bounty for “getting big business to accept bitcoin,” and said it was never claimed. After he decided to hold his BTC but then had to sell most at “a poor rate (~ $ 5) in 2012 when finding a new job took longer than expected.” The early adopter said he had kept “a variable amount of savings at BTC” and was happy about the recent price development.
“Thank you, Satoshi and others who have made Bitcoin what it is today,” concluded Malmi. “May it bring peace and prosperity to the world. Long live Bitcoin. ”
What do you think of Kashmir Hill’s $ 200k sushi lunch and Martti Malmi selling 55k bitcoin at extremely low prices? Let us know what you think of this topic in the comments section below.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Twitter, @marttimalmi,
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