I never bought into the bitcoin boom, at least back in the day. In 2011, many would have told you your trousers were on backwards if you dropped over 50 grand on the then-ailing cryptocurrency, and I listened to said trouser-judgers. Crypto was a flop, bitcoin was dead in the water, and many of us (including this intrepid writer) were openly scoffing at the idea it would ever be worth serious cash.
Well, more fool me, because one mysterious trader appears to have made off with a staggering amount of profit. As spotted by X user @kkashit_yt, one "whale" (as I believe is the common parlance) bought 80,000 bitcoin in 2011 and sold it all this week for $9.6 billion (via Tom's Hardware). Must be nice.
2011 wasn't the best year for bitcoin, as it started out with a valuation of around 29 cents a coin, rose to the dizzying heights of $19.02, and closed out the year at $4.21. You'd have to be truly committed to the idea to spend the equivalent of $77,435 in today's money on an investment that volatile, but our mysterious trader appears to have taken the bet and won.
A $9.6 billion payout equates to roughly a 17,777,677% ROI overall, which simply dwarfs every other investment opportunity you could think of over the same time period. The largest publicly documented stock market ROI is believed to be a 25-year investment in Monster Beverage Corp., which between July 1, 2000 and June 30 of this year is said to have delivered a 145,503.31% return with an annualised growth rate of 33.82%.
The second? Nvidia, somewhat predictably. Given its massive valuation rise in recent years, a 25-year investment in Nvidia stock would have netted you a 59,556.46% price return over the same period.
Still, think of what $9.6 billion could buy you. If you were that lucky trader and you happen to be reading, allow me to present you with a selection of things you could do with your newfound riches:
- Develop between five and nine GTA 6 iterations
- Fund the production of Spiderman 2, 32 times over
- Buy one Big Mac a day for 4,971,897 years
- Commission nineteen versions of Jeff Bezo's superyacht (he'll be so pleased)
- Or you could run OpenAI for a year
So, it's not like your options are limited. Bitcoin has experienced a remarkable boost in value in 2025, rising 27.23% since July 2024 to its current price of $119,096 at the time of writing.
No wait, $119,345. Sorry, that should have been $119,079. Wait, it's more like… you get the idea. It's still a pretty volatile investment even at this mature stage of the market, although the Trump Media and Technology Group recently declared it owns $2 billion of the stuff. What it plans to do with it is anyone's guess. Money making money? I'm lucky if mine makes toast.
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