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

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189 points aorloff | 1 comments | 04 Jul 25 18:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.422s | source
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duttish ◴[04 Jul 25 19:26 UTC] No.44467188[source]▶
Whoever got these wallets better sell them and get a good security company on rotation quickly before anyone find out who they are. Seems like wrench attacks been been happening a lot more the last year.
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Marsymars ◴[04 Jul 25 19:47 UTC] No.44467326[source]▶
I don't really get these; there's not a ton of difference between using a wrench to threaten someone with a bunch of Bitcoin vs using a wrench to threaten someone with a bunch of any other liquid asset that could be used to buy bitcoins.
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BJones12 ◴[04 Jul 25 19:53 UTC] No.44467365[source]▶
If I had 8 billion in cash in my bank account and put in a transfer order, they'd block it, call me, make me come into a branch, make sure there weren't any burly guys with wrenches escorting me in, and maybe call the FBI if anything seemed off.

And if it was still legit after that, there would be days or weeks of waiting for the transfer to actually happen, during which time I could call and cancel.

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1. Marsymars ◴[04 Jul 25 22:11 UTC] No.44468296[source]▶
Alright, so I can see it as a matter of scale.

Recently there was a local case of someone extorting people by leaving threats in the mailboxes to not burn people’s houses down in exchange for $1k in bitcoin.

But who would keep $8B in bitcoin without some protections in place to ensure that it can’t be easily transferred away, given the associated upside/downside? That’s... roughly as foolish as keeping $8B in actual cash/gold/gems (notwithstanding the logistical problems with the size/weight) under your mattress.