From $500 to $10M: Bitcoin Whale Cashes Out 100 BTC Casascius Bar in Epic Windfall

A dormant Bitcoin whale just woke up—and made Wall Street look like a lemonade stand.

The holder of a rare Casascius physical Bitcoin bar—loaded with 100 BTC—redeemed their shiny brick for a staggering $10 million payday. Their initial investment? A laughable $500 back when Bitcoin traded at $5.

HODLing pays (if you’ve got titanium hands)

While hedge funds blew billions on crypto derivatives last quarter, this anonymous collector proved old-school cold storage still crushes. The 2011-era Casascius bar—among the first physical Bitcoins ever minted—sat untouched through four bull runs, two nuclear bear markets, and roughly 47,000 ‘Bitcoin is dead’ headlines.

Bankers hate this one trick

The redemption coincides with Bitcoin’s resurgence as institutional FOMO sends prices toward new highs. Meanwhile, traditional finance ‘experts’ who dismissed crypto now scramble to explain how a $500 bet outperformed their Ivy League portfolios by 20,000x.

One question remains: Will the holder diamond-hand their windfall—or finally buy that private island? Either way, it’s a masterclass in patience beating panic. Just don’t tell the SEC.

However, feeling the pressure of holding such a valuable item, he decided to redeem the bar, which is now worth over $10 million. In his statement, he said, “Now that it’s worth over $10 million, I knew I couldn’t keep just sitting on it. So, yeah… even though I was kinda unsure, I finally redeemed it today.”

The transaction was confirmed on-chain, and he shared the transaction LINK along with his post.

While sharing the news, a user on the thread noticed that JohnGalt had revealed his private key in an image after peeling off the hologram on the Bitcoin bar. They asked whether he had redeemed Bitcoin forks like Bitcoin Cash (BCH) controlled by the same key. JohnGalt confirmed that he had already swept these assets, worth over $40,000, just nine minutes before posting.

JohnGalt has received admiration across the crypto community, as this marks one of the largest physical Bitcoin redemptions to date. Although he has redeemed the BTC, he confirmed that he will not be selling the redeemed Bitcoin bar.

Also read: Figma Files for IPO, Reveals $100M Bitcoin Exposure