INVESTORY
Every informed person needs to know about Bitcoin because it might be one of the world ’ s most important developments .» – Leon Louw , two-time Nobel
Peace Prize nominee
-IOTA — Launched 13 June , 2015- listed a token designed for the Internet of Things micropayment and immediately fetched a value of $ 1.8 billion . At the time of writing this article , the value of one IOTA token stood at $ 1,39 , which marks more than a 60,000 per cent return on investment since the initial coin offering in . -Ethereum — Ether ’ s ( ETH ) issue price at the time of the crowd-sale in 2014 , amounted to $ 0.311 . Ether ’ s all-time high hit $ 407.51 on June 13 , 2017 . At the time of writing , Ether was trading at $ 367.35 , over a 90,000 per cent increase in value since its ICO . -Brave Software ’ s lofty Basic Attention Token ( BAT ), sucked in $ 36 million in 24 seconds ( a $ 180 million valuation ) on the promise of using Blockchain technology to fix digital advertising ’ s deep problems . -Tezos ( XTZ ) — one of the largest ICOs to date , raising $ 232 million worth of Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ethers . -Augur ( REP ) — has practically created a betting platform where you can bet on « everything from
Million-dollar pizzas and the new Nouveau-Riche
The first purchase with crypto-currency happened on May 22 , 2010 . Laszlo Hanyecz , a programmer from Las Vegas , transferred 10,000 Bitcoins ( worth $ 25 at the time ) for two Papa John ’ s pizzas . At today ’ s price , each pizza would have cost him more than 40 million dollars ! Let ’ s hope the owner of Papa John ’ s held on to those Bitcoins . He would be worth over 80 million dollars today .
Erik Finman , an American school leaver , made a bet with his parents that if he became a millionaire by age 18 , they couldn ’ t force him to go to university . He had the foresight to investment in Bitcoin when it cost $ 12 a coin . With the current record-breaking valuation , he has won the bet not to attend university .
« I can proudly say I made it , and I ’ m not going to college ,» Finman said . He currently owns 403 Bitcoins , which at the current $ 10500 a coin puts his Bitcoin value more that 4 million USD . Finman thinks the best days are still ahead . « Personally , I think Bitcoin is going to be worth a couple hundred thousand to a million dollars a coin ,» he said . It should still be approached with caution , as Bitcoin is very volatile , and the value could decline rapidly . But Erik Finman feels very good about it .
The Winklevoss twins discovered Bitcoin in July of 2012 , while holidaying in Ibiza . At 32 years old , the enviably athletic twins had both Harvard and Oxford degrees and seemed predestined for success . They had famously won a $ 65m settlement from Facebook after asserting Mark Zuckerberg had stolen their concept for a Harvard social network . The Winklevoss twins claim to own close to one per cent of the entire Bitcoin Market , which equates to about 120,000 Bitcoins . They spent about $ 11 million ( less than 100 USD a coin ), but the current price , their wallet is worth 1 billion USD . You win some , you ‘ lose ’ some Buried somewhere under mud and mounds of rubbish , in a landfill site near Newport , Wales , in an area about the size of a football pitch is a computer hard drive worth a fortune . It belonged to James Howells , who threw it out when he was clearing up his desk in mid — summer , 2013 . Then he remembered that it held a digital wallet with 7,500 Bitcoins created for almost no money in 2009 . The 7,500 Bitcoins on the hard drive were worth around £ 500,000 when it was thrown in the rubbish . Since then , the value has soared to over 78 millions dollars . As the saying goes , one man ’ s trash is another man ’ s treasure !
Hello Monaco – Winter 2018 / 59