Wired Magazine throws away $538,632 of Bitcoin
On May 10th, 2013 Wired magazine ran an article titled "Watch Wired Get Rich Quick With Our Sleek Bitcoin Miner".
The article goes on to talk about a Butterfly Labs Bitcoin rig they bought for $271 to mine Bitcoin. It was a 5.5GH/s unit they used for about a week before writing the article.
In about two weeks they managed to mine 2 BTC in the Eclipse Mining Consortium pool. At the time, this was worth about $220 and nearly put them at break-even with their miner investment.
"But in the end, the answer was obvious. The world’s most popular digital currency really is nothing more than an abstraction. So we’re destroying the private key used by our Bitcoin wallet. That leaves our growing pile of Bitcoin lucre locked away in a digital vault for all eternity — or at least until someone cracks the SHA-256 encryption that secures it."
- Wired Magazine
In the article they go on to say they have burned the keys and posted the public key to the wallet.
By the looks of it, the wallet received 360 transactions and has a total of 13.3462 Bitcoin valued at $538,632.72 USD right now.
The original article has been removed but you can view an archived copy of it here.
They also included this chart in their article where they publish their progress, you may need to refresh a few times for it to load.
Why you should vote me as witness
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Back then bitcoin was a curiosity. Nobody could have anticipated its current state.
@halfin would have issue with that statement.
Many others who've been around since very early and understood the impacts, naturally we couldn't have expected it to happen this soon, with the economy, pandemic, censorship, etc, but it was all inevitable sooner or later.
Hive is a curiosity nowadays too. It’s all about the archetype the technology represents for the time.
I remember btc being for nerds and crazy people, just like hive is, for the majority nowadays.
That’s why I know what I’m doing this time.
It’s hard to be an early adopter, you must go against the crowd and resist....
@themarkymark, In my opinion there are many Bitcoin Stories which will be discussed or shared in years to come. Stay blessed.
I read somewhere that around 3-4 million BTC has been permanently lost . The analysis isn't accurate but it has analyzed the BTC which is not moved or touched for more than 4-5 years in the wallets .
So many more stories like this are out there for sure .
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Let’s see what it’s worth in the next cycle 😂
There is more to go for BTC
That's about when I first started out and got my first bitcoins. I remember reading the article when it was published. I didn't have steady hands and sold almost everything when it popped over 1k later that year. No regrets, but I could be very well off with it popping 40k now if I had hodl'ed.
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WTf??!!!??
SMH....
How many coins were lost in this early day madness
lol!
Didn't even get a pizza or two.
I'm confused: either they destroyed the keys or they made the public.
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There is a public and a private key, anyone can view the public key.
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aaa ok
I wonder who at Wired made the decision to destroy the keys. Thw writer? The editor? Higher up? That person is a truly mad lad.
Totally understand them. I remember selling stuff on bitmit and earnt a total of 11 btc that i sold for like $600 -$800 remember feeling so chuffed!
I don’t want to think of all my lost btc from my old laptop mining days!!
Live and learn :)
Idiots.
jokes on them :P they just lost half a million :P
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For sure!
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oh god this hurts to read
I hope that there is a clever intern involved who has saved the key in an old .txt document just in case. He is now secretly happy and thinks about how and when he gets the coins down there. Haha, I would see me there.
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