When Janet Yellen, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, testified before Congress in 2017, an intern displayed this hastily made sign, writing "Buy Bitcoin" on a yellow notebook. Today, the notebook was successfully auctioned for $1.027 million.
Bloomberg reported that after the "Buy Bitcoin" sign appeared, it quickly became a rallying cry for a small but rapidly growing community of cryptocurrency developers and investors, and now it is a symbol of the cryptocurrency revival.
Subsequently, as financial giants like Fidelity and BlackRock began to support this digital asset, the price of Bitcoin soared from around $2,300 to a record high of nearly $74,000 in March.
After years of turmoil and price fluctuations, retail investors have been drawn back to the cryptocurrency field, and early Bitcoin artifacts like this sign have become popular again.
According to the auction website Scare City, an anonymous buyer won the item with a bid of 16 bitcoins.
In the last few minutes of bidding, a mistake occurred that led to a price listing of $6.4 million, which was later deemed a mistake, and the final price was adjusted downward.
This slogan was sold by Christian Langalis.
It is reported that Langalis, 22 years old, was an intern at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, and quickly wrote down the message after securing a seat behind Yellen during a House Financial Services Committee meeting in July 2017.
As the meeting was televised, Langalis was promptly escorted out.
The auction material describes it as a "heavy half-pound sketchbook with notepad," which also contains Langalis's notes from the hearing that day.
"Shortly after the hearing, the page with the sign was removed from the notebook. It has since been reconnected with clear archival thread," the description states.
Earlier in an interview, Langalis mentioned that he planned to use the proceeds to fund a Bitcoin software project.
Miyuki
