←back to thread

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

(www.marketwatch.com)
191 points aorloff | 6 comments | 04 Jul 25 18:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.952s | source | bottom
Show context
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 #
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 #
1. 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 #
2. 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.
3. 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 #
4. bbarnett ◴[05 Jul 25 07:21 UTC] No.44470742[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 #
5. improbableinf ◴[05 Jul 25 09:18 UTC] No.44471314[source]▶
That’s what someone who hasn’t disposed all of the coins would say.
6. londons_explore ◴[05 Jul 25 22:30 UTC] No.44476105{3}[source]▶
Plenty of address reuse happened back then