Man turned down a 50,000 Bitcoin house offer in 2015 and it’s worth a shocking amount today

A man who turned down a Bitcoin offer on an property is now regretting his decision.

While Bitcoin was created in 2009, it was still finding its feet in 2015 and many people were apprehensive to invest in the cryptocurrency.

Fast forward to 2024 and those who were brave enough to put their money into Bitcoin are massively reaping the rewards.

As of today (September 26), Bitcoin is worth over $63,000 - up from $26,298.63 one year ago.

If it's gone up that much in a year, I'm sure you can only imagine how much it's gone up in almost a decade.

Back in 2015, in an episode of Million Dollar Listing New York, estate agent Ryan Serhant had an offer of 50,000 Bitcoin for a two-bed apartment (which then was equivalent to around $13 million) that was listed at $14 million.

When Serhant went to make the offer to the seller, it's safe to say they weren't very happy.

On the episode, Serhant is on speaker to his client when they say to him: "You sent us an offer in Bitcoin? I'll be totally honest with you Ryan, that's not even the biggest problem. This offer's a million dollars below ask!"

So, I take that as a no then?

While the property seller's thoughts may have been right at the time, he and Serhant are probably kicking themselves now as that 50,000 Bitcoin offer is now worth over $3 billion.

Ouch.

Another guy who is regretting his previous decisions is James Howells who threw away $190,000 worth of Bitcoin that's now worth substantially more.

The year is 2015. Seller receives a $13million offer for their property - but paid in Bitcoin.

50,000 Bitcoin.

He declines.

Todays value? $3.18 billion. pic.twitter.com/kmf8A4r15p

— Tyler (@TylerDurden) September 24, 2024

Back in 2013, Howells accidentally chucked away a hard drive with 8,000 Bitcoin on it.

Now that Bitcoin is worth millions.

With this in mind, Howells has been searching far and wide for his hard drive ever since. He believes it's in a landfill site somewhere near his home in Newport, Wales, UK.

"I've narrowed down the area where I need to dig, based on the amount of time that's gone by," he told BBC News. "It's a disused section of the site - 100,000 tonnes of a total 1.4m tonnes."

Howells hopes that artificial intelligence may now be his saving grace following his years-long search.

"I'd then take the landfill to a unit where it'll be placed on a conveyor belt and subjected to an AI scanning system," he explained to the news outlet last year.

"And if the AI recognises anything that looks like a hard drive it'll be flagged and removed."

May the odds be ever in your favour, James!