One student has claimed to have accidentally found private keys back in 2011 that will enable HODLed from 2011 and unlock Bitcoin worth more than $ 4 million.
According to a disposable account from BitcoinHolderThankU, the Reddit user was able to cash out around $ 4.2 million in Bitcoin (BTC) after finding the lost keys for 127 BTC on December 22, as the price of the crypto asset was $ 23,000. They later liquidated the coins in the middle of the bull run.
“I spent the next week figuring out how to safely and securely liquidate such a large amount of Bitcoin at the cheapest price,” the Redditor said. “I went back and forth between different ones [over-the-counter principal desks] and finally, all 127 bitcoins were sold at a price of $ 33,439.02 per coin minus a 0.15% fee. The net was around $ 4.24 million. “
They claim to have earned Bitcoin in 2011 or 2012 through “polling, watching videos, and doing random tasks” to ultimately use the coins to purchase in-game currency for the online game DarkOrbit. The private keys were supposedly never really missed, just forgotten on an older Dell model as BitcoinHolderThankU ultimately didn’t buy the currency.
Unfortunately, if the Redditor’s account is to be believed, they missed an additional $ 1 million in profit because they were only a few more weeks off. Since December, the price of Bitcoin has surpassed $ 41,000 to hit new highs. BitcoinHolderThankU admitted that they “would not have sold all 127 bitcoin” if the same situation had happened again.
“To do myself credit, I did HODL for 8-9 years, which is more than the vast majority of crypto users,” they said. “I would definitely have done it differently if I had got a second chance.”
Despite their sudden fortune, the Redditor says they will avoid “expensive luxuries” and intends to put the bulk of the funds into the S&P 500, adding:
“I don’t want to end up like one of those who win the lottery and blow everything up in a few months / years […] I will go on with my normal life like on December 21st and every day before that. “
Unfortunately, not all stories with misplaced or forgotten keys have such happy ending. More than $ 285 million in Bitcoin may still be lost in a dump in the UK after an IT professional accidentally dumped his personal laptop with his keys in 2013.
