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    Sleeping beauty Bitcoin wallets wake up after 14 years to the tune of $2B

    (www.marketwatch.com)
    191 points aorloff | 14 comments | 04 Jul 25 18:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.652s | source | bottom
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    mattlondon ◴[04 Jul 25 19:06 UTC] No.44467062[source]▶
    Maybe that guy who was digging up a landfill to find his old HDD finally found it!

    Seriously though, what are the odds that someone has been quietly spending 10s/100s of millions in cloud compute to brute force the keys for old wallets?

    replies(12): >>44467081 #>>44467123 #>>44467396 #>>44467750 #>>44469927 #>>44470471 #>>44470497 #>>44470630 #>>44470975 #>>44471691 #>>44471790 #>>44472481 #
    1. volfonibros ◴[04 Jul 25 19:17 UTC] No.44467123[source]▶
    For anyone else who's been vaguely following the story as it popped up every few years, the latest news came out a few days ago : he finally gave up.
    replies(4): >>44467200 #>>44467203 #>>44467210 #>>44467221 #
    2. xdfgh1112 ◴[04 Jul 25 19:28 UTC] No.44467200[source]▶
    Source?

    https://x.com/howelzy

    replies(1): >>44470532 #
    3. nixass ◴[04 Jul 25 19:28 UTC] No.44467203[source]▶
    > he finally gave up

    Sounds like something someone who found few billion USD on a thumb drive would say :)

    replies(2): >>44467551 #>>44469760 #
    4. ◴[04 Jul 25 19:29 UTC] No.44467210[source]▶
    5. nothrabannosir ◴[04 Jul 25 19:31 UTC] No.44467221[source]▶
    That’s definitely also what I would publicize if I actually found the HDD. :)
    replies(2): >>44467611 #>>44470481 #
    6. stavros ◴[04 Jul 25 20:17 UTC] No.44467551[source]▶
    I wouldn't say anything.
    7. rtkwe ◴[04 Jul 25 20:25 UTC] No.44467611[source]▶
    He lost his court battle to force the local government running the dump to allow him to dig the last I heard. So I doubt it, he wasn't even allowed to really try.
    8. hinkley ◴[05 Jul 25 02:46 UTC] No.44469760[source]▶
    Has he opened a bar instead?
    replies(1): >>44470266 #
    9. volemo ◴[05 Jul 25 05:25 UTC] No.44470266{3}[source]▶
    He named it Puzzles.
    10. londons_explore ◴[05 Jul 25 06:18 UTC] No.44470481[source]▶
    Good chance those coins are 100% traceable. They were lost in the days before good privacy tools like mixers, and the database of the biggest exchange MtGox was fully leaked so everyone knows the real name, email, bank details, and date of birth of the owner of every old coin.

    Very pleased I disposed of all mine long ago, and the Blockchain shows that so nobody tries to kidnap me for the keys.

    replies(2): >>44470742 #>>44471314 #
    11. volfonibros ◴[05 Jul 25 06:31 UTC] No.44470532[source]▶
    I went back to the (french) articles making that claim in headlines and it turns out to be false, thanks.

    He lost his appeal in his case against the city authority to search the landfill, so he can't ever search for it. It's a bit buried in his feed in between the announcements about tokenizing part of these legally inaccessible coins.

    12. bbarnett ◴[05 Jul 25 07:21 UTC] No.44470742{3}[source]▶
    In the early days, a pentium 486 in your garage could have made these coins in a few months.

    And you don't need an exchange to transfer coins.

    No one knows who owns these wallets... yet. That's why they are mysterious.

    replies(1): >>44476105 #
    13. improbableinf ◴[05 Jul 25 09:18 UTC] No.44471314{3}[source]▶
    That’s what someone who hasn’t disposed all of the coins would say.
    14. londons_explore ◴[05 Jul 25 22:30 UTC] No.44476105{4}[source]▶
    Plenty of address reuse happened back then