Myths and legends interweave around the whereabouts of millions of
Myths and legends interweave around the whereabouts of millions of lost Bitcoins.
However, unsurpassed is the BTC fortune of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, who presumably destroyed for all eternity.
Cryptography is well and good. But what if you lose your private key?
The SHA-256 hash function is a good thing for security in the bitcoin network. SHA stands for Secure Hash Algorithm.
Nakamoto has taken security pretty seriously while creating Bitcoin since both the bitcoin mining and the mathematical connection between public key and the address is based on SHA-256.
The key collisions are mathematically unlikely.
It’s more likely to find a gold coin sunk in the Atlantic than to guess a matching private key by chance.
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5 Cases of Lost BTC
1. James Howell’s Fight Against Garbage
Do you know there’s a guy, James Howells, who tried to dig for Bitcoin on a dump? Yes, that’s true.
Howell dumbed a hard drive with 7.500 mined Bitcoin on a Welsh dump. Since then, he has made headlines with his persistent fight against the authorities in his community of Newport.
Though, his efforts didn’t make it.
2. Wired Destroys 13 Bitcoins
Similarly absurd is the story of Wired magazine!
The technology magazine dedicated a veritable reportage to the story about 13 lost BTC.
The editorial team of Wired magazine got an ominous device from Butterfly Labs in 2013. The square, black box suddenly turned out to be a Bitcoin Miner. It is easy to forget, but gigantic farms near the Arctic Circle have not dependably dominated bitcoin mining.
At that time, you could go on a Bitcoin hunt with your system. They did this until they had 13 Bitcoin together. However, it didn’t take long unless the question of how to use the coins was raised.
Many recommendations were put forward and owing to the lack of more sensible alternatives, the editorial team of Wired decided to destroy the coins.
Wired didn’t destroy 13 BTC by mistake, but intentionally.
3. Elon Musk Doesn’t Know Where His BTCs Have Gone
Whether Elon Musk wants to go to Mars or the moon is something that’s not known to this day.
In the past, the serial entrepreneur made several hints in this direction. However, nobody knows to this day, whether and which cryptocurrency he holds.
However, a tweet in November 2017 revealed that a friend sent him some cryptocurrency back then. However, he doesn’t remember where his Satoshis stayed.
If This Is True Once Again @elonmusk 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏https://t.co/HfGP8Dz5Oi
— Ѕαи∂єєρ Gυттιкσи∂α (@ThisIsSandeepG) November 28, 2017
4. User Confuses Network Fees with Transaction Cost
In case anyone has ever wondered whether there is a capitalization on transaction fees, then please refer to the following story.
In 2016, this tweet of a user caused a sensation –
it appears some idiot sent 0.0001 BTC with a 291.241 BTC miner fee instead of the other way around. RIP bags. https://t.co/8rb1VY1e3g
— 🐔ActualAdvice BTC (@ActualAdviceBTC) April 26, 2016
The user has sent Bitcoin the equivalent of about 5 USD and paid fees for it in the current equivalent of a single-family house.
What remains is the realization that Bitcoin is aimed at the personal responsibility of users. Errors cannot be reversed.
5. Satoshi’s Assets
Neither the whereabouts nor the amount of Bitcoin creator’s fortune is known to the date. Rumour has it that the Whitepaper author once owned up to a million BTCs, but the legend has it that he destroyed the private key.
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Final Words
With all the speculations, one this is clear that if Satoshi Nakamoto ever decides to move his digital treasure or even sell it, it would cause an earthquake in the industry.
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