One red paperclip

The paperclip that Kyle MacDonald used to start the series of trades by which eventually he traded for a house.

One red paperclip is a website created by Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald, who traded his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of fourteen online trades over the course of a year.[1] MacDonald was inspired by the childhood game Bigger, Better. His site received a considerable amount of notice for tracking the transactions. "A lot of people have been asking how I've stirred up so much publicity around the project, and my simple answer is: 'I have no idea'", he told the BBC.[2] The story has inspired countless copycats, who have attempted to trade their way up from a paperclip (or other small items) to something expensive, with varying degrees of success.[3]

  1. ^ "From paper-clip to house, in 14 trades – Canada – CBC News". Cbc.ca. July 7, 2006. Retrieved April 20, 2013.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference bbc was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Free, Cathy (August 20, 2020). "A guy once swapped a paper clip to get a house. This woman is trying to do the same". The Washington Post.