Norwegian crypto founder with 773 million bitcoin fortune – E24

Oslo man Ger Harald Hansen (47) was out early to invest in cryptocurrency.

At the end of last year, his investment firm Aesir Financial owned 3,150 units of the largest and most popular currency, Bitcoin.

In 2020 accounts, the portfolio is valued at NOK 773 million, up from NOK 198 million the previous year.

The increase in value reflects the maximum increase in bitcoin prices of 332 percent through 2020, to approach 277,000 Norwegian kroner.

So far this year, the exchange rate has risen by a new 153 percent to 424,000 kroner. Thus, the value of Hansen’s portfolio, assuming he didn’t sell it, has increased to NOK 1.33 billion so far in 2021.

Aesir also reported $217 million in crypto debt at the end of the year. This is interpreted as an estimate of what the company owes to other participants in a network to mine cryptocurrency (mining pool), which can be removed “at any time after winning a pool.” If you deduct the debt, there is still a holding of 558 million NOK – or 2,276.76 bitcoins.

I’m done as a bureaucrat

Hansen previously worked in the Directorate of Information and Communication Technology and Shared Services in Higher Education and Research (Unit), under the Ministry of Education, but resigned during 2019.

The many years of interest in cryptocurrencies have led to it being mentioned several times in the Norwegian media.

I 2011 Dagens Næringsliv . Books About how he installed one of the most powerful 3D graphics cards on the market from his small apartment on the eastern edge of Oslo, into a very noisy computer.

– Hansen said it comes with a lot of electricity, but the nice thing is that I don’t have to heat the apartment with panel heaters DN this time.

In addition to bitcoin, Aesir Financial put out other cryptocurrencies such as Namecoins and Stellar at the end of last year, but these were of limited value in terms of the amount in bitcoin.

Hansen was behind the Bitminter crypto network, with a business idea to integrate cryptocurrency winners from around the world, thus increasing overall capacity.

After nine years in business, Bitminter shut down last summer. On the web old site It is claimed to have more than 700,000 active participants, and has generated about one percent of the number of Bitocins in circulation today, during its nine years of operation.

Pay 12.2 million in taxes

Aesir Financial reported a profit after tax of NOK 38.7 million last year, up from NOK 25.3 million the previous year.

The largest revenue came from realized cryptocurrency gains of 25.5 million, in addition to 41.8 million other financial income. The latter is mainly explained by the Bitcoin life policy gains of 39 million.

The company paid 12.2 million in taxes for the year 2020. The notes also note that 8.1 million in taxes were paid for the 2017 tax year, and that “due to ongoing correction of the tax return, this is classified as a current receivable.”

Hansen has invested a lot of income from the crypto business in both real estate and equity funds, and Aesir had such investments of $21.3 million at the end of 2020.

Despite the fact that the company’s cryptocurrency had a market capitalization of 781 million at the end of the year, it was booked at a cost of 97 million in the accounts, in line with current accounting rules.

Aesir had a written equity of 89.5 million in the new year, and total assets of 150 million.

Geir Harald Hansen did not respond to E24 inquiries.