How an Undeterred Bitcoin Entrepreneur Struck Big after the Mt. Gox Disaster

Recently, a Perth man named Adrian Pollard spoke to Perth Now about his experience with cryptocurrencies and bitcoin in particular. In Australia, the property market has seen better days, and the country’s currency, the Australian dollar, has been losing value in the last few years.

Here’s how the Australian dollar has been performing against the United States dollar:

One bitcoin is currently worth over AUS$3,400, and bitcoin early investor Adrian Pollard managed to get rich thanks to the cryptocurrency, despite the country’s currency losing value. At first, he hesitantly decided to buy $100 worth of bitcoin, but as soon as the cryptocurrency took off in 2013 he kept on buying. Per his own words:

I put in $2000, $3000 and that just made me a ton of money really, really quickly. That was in 2013, I got in at around $30 and then it went to $260 so it was quite a big rise and it sold really fast and that was quite an experience. So I made a lot of money and then I lost a lotAdrian lost a lot because, according to reports, back in 2014 he had over AUS$200,000 in Tokyo-based Mt Gox before about 850,000 bitcoins went missing and the then leading bitcoin exchange filed for bankruptcy. Adrian lost it all, but despite the pain of striking it big and then losing everything, he kept on believing in bitcoin.

The Australian bitcoiner is said to have invested between AUS$10,000 and AUS$15,000 throughout his life and claims to have digital assets in the “six figure” mark. Now, and despite losing everything because of bitcoin’s still young ecosystem, he owns his own bitcoin-related business.

Relocating to South Korea

According to Perthnow, Adrian Pollock moved to South Korea, to be a part of the ccryptocurrency’s development in the county. he created his own business, Hollapay.com, that essentially allows users to send their money abroad using bitcoin, eliminating the need for third-party intermediaries.

According to Adrian:

Bitcoin and all the crypto currencies are a bit difficult to use and hard to understand, what we’re doing is offering a service that builds on top of that technology and makes it a lot easier to use if you want to send money abroad.

Even though South Korean authorities are yet to decide how to regulate bitcoin, the cryptocurrency often trades at a premium in the country due to market instability and growing popularity. Moreover, in South Korea, the government is to auction off 216 bitcoins, worth over half a million dollar, that were seized during a series of investigations into illicit financial activities.

Despite growing interest, Dr. David Glance, from the center of software practice at UWA, told Perthnow investors should be wary of bitcoin due to the currency’s volatility, and lack of regulations.

Bret Treasure, former Australian Web Industry Association chairman, claimed bitcoin has been rising in value due to growing interest in China, and said he doesn’t trade bitcoins, but does own some. He added:

It’s become recognized as a very good store of value. When you compare it to gold it doesn’t require you to collect the gold from a particular place, it’s not a physical object and it’s superlatively transferable.

Featured image from Shutterstock.