Legendary "Buy Bitcoin" sign auctioned for 1 million US dollars

The well-known yellow notepad in the Bitcoin community with the inscription "Buy Bitcoin" was auctioned off yesterday for 16 Bitcoin, or just over 1 million US dollars. After the week-long auction, the legendary sign went to the highest bidder "Squirrekkywrath", who was acting under a pseudonym. The buyer is believed to be a long-standing Bitcoin OG.

The creator and seller is Christian Langalis, who held the sign up to the camera in July 2017 during a televised hearing of the House Financial Services Committee. Meanwhile, the then Chair of the US Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, was speaking, reporting to Congress on the semi-annual monetary policy review.

The then 22-year-old intern at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute was escorted out after the event. The Bitcoin price rose by 3.7 percent to over 2,400 US dollars during the broadcast. The legendary picture taken during the auction with Janet Yellen, now US Secretary of the Treasury, and the "Buy Bitcoin" sign in the background quickly spread throughout the Bitcoin community, which was still much smaller at the time.

The auction itself took place in the Bitcoin bar PubKey in New York, where Langalis was also present. In an interview beforehand, he announced that he would use the proceeds to found a start-up working on a second layer for Bitcoin.