Entry Submitted by Charles at 7:30 AM ET on February 29, 2024
James Howell lost his Bitcoin wallet in 2012. That was the same year I lost my own. I had a Bitcoin digital wallet on a Samsung Note 7 tablet which contained slightly less than 2 Bitcoins when I “power washed” the device. I destroyed the digital wallet. I lost only about 1.5 BTC, worth maybe $25 at the time. Today it would be worth over US$80,000.
Several people have tried to convince me that the “blockchain” contains the transactions which would prove that I still own the Bitcoin; that’s not true … the blockchain contains the digital key that identifies the owner. The only person who can claim those Bitcoins is the possessor of that digital key. Where is that key? Not backed up anywhere else, it vanished with everything I removed from that tablet PC; it was stored in the Bitcoin wallet. It no longer exists.
In 2012, by the way, there were several businesses in Moncton, New Brunswick, that had Bitcoin ATMs (by scanning a barcode generated on your digital device, the ATM would accept a Bitcoin transfer and dispense cash). It was an easy and convenient way to convert BTC→$. I haven’t seen one of those ATMs in years. Do they still exist?
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Charles
And, a little piece of often repeated Bitcoin trivia:
The first Bitcoin transaction was 10,000 BTC for 2 pizzas. (sources) In today’s value, 10,000 BTC is worth over half a million US dollars.
