Woman spent $550,000 worth of bitcoin on sushi and made the restaurant owner rich

She thought it was “silly” that crypto could become so valuable, yet her payment has helped make the restaurant owner’s wealthy.

A tech writer has revealed how she blew bitcoin now worth almost $550,000 on a sushi dinner for strangers.

Kashmir Hill revealed she spent 10 of the crypto coins at restaurant Sake Zone in San Francisco while doing a piece for Forbes in 2013.

And some seven years later she revealed restaurant owner Yung Chen still has much of her bitcoin, using the fortune in part to retire.

Ms Hill revealed her experience in a piece for The New York Times, saying she thought it was “silly” that bitcoin could become a store of value like gold.

She was taking part in a challenge to live for a week on bitcoin – and decided to offer her final few coins for a gathering of crypto fans from Reddit to have a slap up meal at Sake Zone.

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The sushi would now be worth almost $550,000. Picture: iStock

She admitted at the time she even feared she had cheated Mr Chen – but now her platter of tempura shrimps and teriyaki is worth $498,000.

“I felt guilty at the time, making Yung Chen accept $US1000 worth of funny money because it was unclear to me whether bitcoin should be worth anything at all,” she said.

The journalist got back in touch with Mr Chen as bitcoin enjoyed a bumper year during the pandemic as prices surged as people moved much of their lives online.

She revealed Mr Chen and his wife have now retired – having amassed their own fortune of 41 bitcoins, which is worth around $2 million.

Sake Zone was an early adopter of accepting cryptocurrency, and was one of the few places that would accept it when Ms Hill accepted the Forbes challenge.

Mr Chen actually sold a quarter of his total bitcoin when they shut Sake Zone in 2017 – a decision he now regrets, but he is relieved he kept hold of the rest of his coins.

He said: “I sold some. I feel so bad. Now, I just keep it. I just put it there like stock and wait.

“The bitcoin has become one of the major saving assets in my portfolio. It’s a lot. It’s close to like a half-million dollars in my account.”

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The sushi restaurant owners have now retried with their fortune. Picture: Ozan Kose/AFP

‘Big money’

The restaurateur felt confident adopting bitcoin so early after working in the tech sector in the 1980s when he first emigrated from Hong Kong to California.

Sake Zone was located next door to the offices of the Internet Archive, so with staff coming in regularly the Chens decided it was time to start accepting bitcoin.

“[I did] not really think of [it as] money. More like a new product that I would like to play around with,” Mr Chen said.

He added he did worry when Ms Hill made her 10 bitcoin purchase for around $US1000 ($A1300) worth of sushi – but he’s happy he did as now crypto is “big money”.

Ms Hill’s story comes after the tale of “bitcoin pizza guy”, who spent $A500 million of bitcoin on Papa John’s.

Meanwhile, one furious Redditor declared bitcoin had ruined his life as he found his $550 million was lost after his mum threw out his broken laptop.

This story originally appeared on The Sun and is reproduced here with permission