In brief
- A Bitcoin miner has stumbled on an old Bitcoin wallet.
- The wallet contained 1,000 Bitcoin—and any Bitcoin forks too.
- The miner may have sold it just before the market crash.
A Bitcoin miner has discovered an old Bitcoin wallet containing a small fortune—worth $8 million.
According to a post on Bitcoin forum BitcoinTalk, a self-proclaimed Bitcoin "newbie" mined some Bitcoin using a personal computer back when it was possible to do so—before massive mining rigs took over. It appears they stumbled across the coin only recently and took to BitcoinTalk to find out what to do with the massive stash.
2010 wallet moving coins https://t.co/gSFn1ypESD pic.twitter.com/8rt0lGBtIX
— red (@redxbt) March 13, 2020
"I mined some bitcoin for a little bit, a long time ago; back when it was still possible to mine with GPU. I haven't been active here for a long time," they wrote on March 10, adding, "How do I move my BTC to sell?"
Several members of BitcoinTalk gave him some guidance. While the miner didn't specify, later that day a transaction was made moving 1,000 Bitcoin, worth $7.95 million at the time.
These coins were originally mined on August 24, 2010—suggesting they belonged to this poster. It's rare to see coins that have been stagnant for so long suddenly move.
But the stash was likely even bigger. Since the Bitcoin blockchain has been forked a number of times since 2010, the wallet also contained 1,000 Bitcoin Cash (BCH), 1,000 Bitcoin SV (BSV) and so on. Just these two coins, when combined, add an extra $475,000.
"Thank you all for all the suggestions. It was overall a great return and the best welcome one can get!" he posted two days later.
The miner had pretty good timing. If they did sell the coins on the day, they would have made around $8 million. But if they had waited until earlier today, it would have been worth just half.