Topic: 9 Years ago A Lucky Man bought 30,000 BTC from US Government in this month (Read 196 times)

I'm completely reading this article amazing story spite of initial losses from Mtgox the person found his faith in Bitcoin again and eventually buy it from the US government at a higher price and finally making him wealthy. It also provides distinctive Bitcoin application cases like escrow services and automatic employee payments. The predicting Bitcoin's inclusion into reputable companies in the future, the piece dispels the myth that it is mostly utilised for illegal purposes. I appreciate the person's gratitude. if I was in their shoes i might think about placing a second offer since I believe in Bitcoin's potential for long term success.

Tim Draper is no regular guy who overcame a loss and became rich. In the article, he says he wanted to buy $250k worth of Bitcoin, which means he was already quite rich in 2011. And then with the Silk Road confiscated coins, he bought 30,000 BTC, paying $632 per coin, so it was a huge investment which he, again, could totally afford. To be honest, I don't think he bravely pushed through the loss. The thing is just that the $250k he lost before wasn't really a big amount of money to him, wasn't a big deal. I'm only saying this because he then casually spent almost 19 million dollars on buying BTC from the US government. And honestly, if you're already rich enough to be able to invest so much money into Bitcoin, do you really need the profits you'll get from it?

It worked out but it could go other way as well. Although, it's always good to try something as long as it's reasonable than not try and regret.

Regarding bidding again after losing big, it depends on balance in bank account. More the balance, more the risk appetite 

The word lucky is oftentimes wrongly used in relation to Bitcoin investment.

Tim Draper wasn't lucky that he bought 30,000 Bitcoin from the US government for $632 each. He wasn't lucky that after he bought $250,000 worth of Bitcoin when each coin was only worth $6 and lost them all in the Mt. Gox fiasco, he tried to recover them by bidding with the highest price the auctioned coins earlier seized by the government for being involved in criminal transactions. Surely, Draper isn't lucky that he still got his coins until now.

Tim learned and believed in Bitcoin, took the risk, shelled out millions of dollars for it, developed strong hands and hodled through the worst of bears and best of bulls, kept it despite all the regulatory uncertainties, despite it's volatility and its being an unconventional asset that hasn't proven anything yet.

You have evaluated some great points out of the article which showed your positive enthusiasm toward Cryptocurrency. I am also surprised by the statement of a guy who lost a big amount of money and then bought the same assets. Then I thought first he was buying it from a decentralized exchange and after that he bought it from the government. But to clarify things, I have no idea at that time people could buy BTC through the government.

If they could then the mindset of the person who bought again after big loss must have more confidence them before because now he is buying through some centralized authority. Which might have insured the investment too.

Bitcoin is definitely a generalization project but it is not like internet where anyone could use the internet without remaining hidden. Because on internet your up addresses is went public through many websites and cookies and it become hard to remain anonymous but with the decentralization concept things have shifted and the functionality too. So these two are two different things.

Do people who advocate for blockchain smart contracts automation even know that banks have been providing APIs for their customers for many years, long before smart contracts were even a word, and the payments, accounting and all that stuff has been automated by entities that operate at large scales. So what benefits can Bitcoin offer to them? Getting their wallets drained by hackers or rogue employee with zero chance of returning the money?

The deep web is such a vague term. There was Silk Road back then but what do we have today? Most “illegal websites” on there are in fact honeypots and it’s quite hard to even find the name of an actual website selling illicit services and products.

If we’re talking money laundering and illegal services, we’ve got to include all currencies out there, especially those predominantly used for the above. Had Bitcoin or Monero been such a great asset for criminals, they would’ve become the asset of choice long ago. But it’s not! It’s actually quite hard to have privacy nowadays even with currencies like Monero. Cash is still a preference for non advanced crypto users if privacy is a priority. Otherwise, you use Monero or BTC thinking you’re private but you’re actually never private enough because you make big mistakes that reveal everything behind.

Man, I wish someone told me about Bitcoins 10 years ago. I would have kept them safe in a 2005 XP system disconnected from the world lol.
On the other hand, how can you bet big after losing all you had? Your question sounds meaningless mate.

US Government makes a lot of million dollars in a day so they can simply buy this amount of Bitcoin within hours, no big deal for them afaik.

Each time I read the stories of the early adopters of Bitcoin, I am thrilled by their ability to believe in something strange. He believed the unbelievable. But Tim's case is exceptional because he had genuine reasons to abandon Bitcoin and also discourage others from venturing into the currency. But he decided to try the second time not minding how much he had lost before. Tim Draper is an inspiration to everyone that believes in Bitcoin. One quality that assisted him was his ability to accept innovation even when most people fled from the product. If I was Tim I would never have invested in Bitcoin again because I would have seen the delay of my ASIC chips by Butterfly Labs and the fall of Mt. Gox as a sign for me to quit. He was a superhuman not to abandon the Bitcoin project. I learned two lessons from this story; be open-minded and never give up.

Firstly the title is wrong. The man was not lucky to have bought Bitcoin from that auction, he was very interested in Bitcoin and got into it right from the beginning when others had not realized the potential it had.
Maintaining trust in Bitcoin after that crash on MTGox and losing thousands of Bitcoin shows Tim has really understood the fundamentals and saw the huge potential it has.

Now to the question, Tim is a pure Bitcoin enthusiast, much more than many of us here. I doubt I would be able to recover from such an initial loss.

I remember when he bought that Bitcoin. I had only been in Bitcoin for like 6 months at that point. It was a blind auction and he ended up winning with a price like $50 over the current price of Bitcoin, I think he paid somewhere around $650 per bitcoin. (ah nevermind I just read the article and it said he paid $632, not bad for my memory after 9 years haha!)

Given the long term trajectory of Bitcoin's price, Tim Draper is going to have tens of billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin just from that one purchase (I'm sure he owns more Bitcoin than just that one purchase) by some point next decade. Just imagine how rich he would be if he hadn't lost all those bitcoin on Mt Gox...$250k at $6 price is over 41k bitcoin!


Tim Draper is a smart guy. He understands Bitcoin's value and that it is still early days for Bitcoin and the Bitcoin revolution has barely even yet begun.

Indeed, the resilience and foresight shown by the person in the story are commendable. Despite suffering a considerable loss with MTGOX, he reinvested in Bitcoin, displaying unwavering faith in its potential. If I were in his place, I'd like to think I would make the same decision. Bitcoin, as an asset class, has shown remarkable resilience and growth potential over the years. Making a decision to reinvest, while difficult, could be seen as an educated and strategic choice.

The extensive uses of Bitcoin and blockchain technology listed in the article reflect their transformative potential. These technologies can revolutionize diverse sectors, from finance to supply chain management. Such comprehensive usage further strengthens the case for Bitcoin, beyond its typical association with just being a store of value or a payment solution.

Lastly, the point about self-regulation and decentralization is spot on. Just like the internet democratized information, Bitcoin and blockchain can democratize finance, enabling everyone to partake in the financial world without needing traditional intermediaries.

The transactions can be traced as they have full record over blockchain but it's hard to trace them down when you mix them through any service which is what most people do over dark web but we can't say bitcoin is bad because people are doing it with fiat also and what have governments done to stop them?

Tim Draper is quite a very famous Bitcoin personality and am sure he has become an inspiration to many crypto enthusiasts to never give up and continue on holding. Reading through his many ups and downs, we can see that he has a very good "never quit" attitude. And right now when BTC is starting to roar like a waking dragon, I am sure that Tim is really smiling as he has proven again and again that Bitcoin is here to stay and will continue to be a big force into the future despite many challenges and in spite the bad mindset now invading SEC USA lead by Gary Gensler.

Admit it or not, bitcoin or crypto in general has a weakness to be misused as a place for money laundering. In addition, Bitcoin is also one of the currencies used for payments on the deep web. The two examples above did happen and were carried out by someone. I don't think bitcoin can be considered bad when there are people who use it badly. As with fiat money, it is also widely misused for embezzlement and forgery. It is very discriminatory if bitcoin is considered bad because it is used by irresponsible persons


Tim Draper is indeed a great person and has great bitcoin analysis, I read the article you linked, and it's interesting. Even though he has fallen and been cheated on, he can still get back up and his faith in bitcoin has not disappeared. Tim Draper saw a good opportunity so he paid more to get the bitcoins confiscated from Silk Road

What he believed in came true and bitcoin has a fantastic price. He was so lucky, what he believed according to his analysis came true. Not many people come back from a slump, but Tim Draper did

I don't know what would have happened if I were in his position but he has set a great example, it is something we should all emulate.

If my first big loss is big enough to kill me, I will have nothing to come back and find my second chance.

It is my explanation that we should always take care of our capital, initial capital must be protected as best as possible with our risk management. It should be best intact and if we get profit from our investment or trading, you should withdraw our initial capital gradually till we completely save it.

If we have loss, we must minimize our loss by cut loss, stop loss orders and save our capital as much as possible. Loss is not the end of world and the end of our trading or investment if we still have capital for second, third and more later chances. However if we lose all capital, it's the actual ending.

Some big whales lost big in the past and became scammers as they can not accept fact that they lost big by their faults. They want to get it back and no way to get it back quickly than by scamming.

Article Link

I read this article today and I found it very interesting because it contains an interesting story of buying btc and  real use case of btc. Here are some points that i think is worth reading, i have pointed out from this article.

==> If you lost at first in any new thing it doesn't  meant that you should now leave it and try another one. if you have strong faith in one thing then you should not miss opportunity like in this article after losing big with MTGOX ceasing operation but later he again buy btc from us govt by paying more than market rate. He has recovered loss and now he is wealthy man also.

==> In this article the usecase of btc has been mentioned which i never heard before like using as an escrow, paying to employers in btc automatically . before this I was thinking that Btc only usecase is an asset and payment solutions



==> the author is in favor of self regulation of BTC which we called it decentralization. This will the same like internet where every one is able to do own business and the same system could be used in btc also.

==> one of best and last point from this article that most of country doing ban on btc by claiming that it is mostly used by criminals for money laundering and black purpose. author clearly disagree with this because in early stage of internet the same idea was taken by most if country but later internet revolutionized the world and used by many bug industry. The same case will he also with btc and many big firms and industry will use btc, once they know the real usecase of btc

What your opinion about this guy and if you was in the place of this guy,would you bid second time after losing big?