Trading Up: How one man swapped a paperclip for a house

Take two vegetarians from Vancouver, a ceramic artist from Seattle, a shock-rock legend, a TV star turned Hollywood producer, a town with an impish sense of humour, a whimsical quest dreamed up by a 25-year-old free spirit, mix them together and what do you get? One of the most improbable swaps imaginable: a paperclip for a house.

It all began in July 2005. Kyle MacDonald was a restless young Canadian who asked himself a simple question: how far could he get if he played “Bigger and Better”, a kids’ scavenger hunt game, on the internet? The way it worked was players took a mundane item – say, a pencil – then scattered out into the neighbourhood, knocked on doors, traded up, then reconvened and voted on who had made the biggest and/or best swap. “I decided that instead of knocking on a neighbour’s door, it would be fun to knock on the internet’s door and see what people had to offer,” Kyle explains simply. It was pointless, yes. It was silly, certainly. But it was fun.