A gold coin with a denomination of approximately 1,000 bitcoins was purchased in 2011. This is when bitcoin wasn’t trading for anywhere near the price it is at today. At the time, the coin was worth about $4,900. It stayed in a desk drawer for many years, ultimately forgotten about and lost to time.
A Gold Coin and Bitcoin Fused Into a Special Asset
However, now its owner – who wishes to remain anonymous – has pulled it out of that desk drawer and has had the currency valued at approximately $48 million. That is a massive return on investment, and the owner appears to agree, as he stated in an interview:
This is the greatest return on investment for any numismatic item, a staggering 9,786 times the purchase price in just ten years.
What’s ironic is that this person initially was hesitant to even purchase the asset. However, now that he’s done so, he’s eager to cash in on its worth and rake in a little profit. He mentioned:
It was definitely a stretch to make the purchase in 2011, as I didn’t really know what bitcoin was or how I was going to redeem it one day. I remember trying to decide whether to buy this one piece for $4,905 or whether to buy two gold bars — about $4,000 at the time — but thankfully, I decided on the ‘Gold Cas.’
“Gold Cas” has become the official nickname for the coin. It stands for “Gold Casascius” and refers to the brand of BTC units that were produced between 2011 and 2013. Only six of these coins have ever been developed. Ian Russell – president of Great Collections in Irvine – commented:
It may be the world’s greatest investment in [a ten year] time span.
Contemplating the Move…
The owner described the circumstances that initially led him to make the purchase in the first place:
I was looking to buy gold, and at the time in 2011, it hit a record high and was being reported almost daily in the newspapers, alongside stories about bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Most of the stories were negative about bitcoin back then, but since the newspapers were giving it space, I thought there might be more to it. The ‘Gold Cas’ got my attention since it had gold and bitcoin combined… When I bought the coin for $4,905, I really had no idea what the potential was. Otherwise, I would have bought more than one! After the purchase, I forgot about it, leaving it in a desk drawer. That changed in late 2013 when I saw a headline about Bitcoin being worth $1,000, and it hit me that the coin I purchased for $4,905 was suddenly worth $1 million. It prompted me to work out what bitcoin was all about, and since that time, I’ve been watching it rather closely.
