British investor recovers bitcoin bought for $1,990 — now worth $4.5m

A British investor has recovered bitcoin he thought was lost after a virtual asset exchange shut down 14 years ago — turning an initial investment of about 2.7 million won ($1,990) into a windfall now worth roughly 6 billion won.

The investor, known by the pseudonym "Chris," bought bitcoin worth 1,500 pounds at a UK virtual asset exchange called Britcoin in December 2011, according to News1 and CoinDesk.

Britcoin was later rebranded as Intersango, which halted trading in late 2012 and shut down entirely in early 2014. Chris spent more than a decade believing his bitcoin was gone for good.

"The most painful thing was watching the price of bitcoin rise and thinking about what I could have done with that money," he said. "I had young children and a new home at the time, and we weren't well off financially — it was a real blow."

The long-dormant assets were ultimately recovered through technical tracing by a specialist law firm.

CEL Solicitors, a UK law firm specializing in cryptocurrency, used blockchain data-tracking software to identify wallet addresses where funds belonging to former Intersango users had been frozen. More than 5,500 bitcoin were found in those wallets.

Chris ultimately recovered his bitcoin, with the holdings now valued at approximately $4.5 million, or about 6 billion won.

That represents a return of more than 2,200 times his original investment. At the time of purchase, bitcoin was trading at under $4 per coin.

Chris said he plans to use part of the recovered funds to pay off his son's mortgage and hold the remaining bitcoin as a long-term investment.