So I got into bitcoin really early when faucets were popular and ended up buying around 30 BTC for like 5 bucks. Totally forgot about it until I dug out this old laptop from my basement, turned it on, and boom, my wallet is still there with 30 BTC! I'm honestly shaking and super excited. Anyone got advice on what I should do next?
Before anything else, disconnect your computer from the network and take multiple backups of your wallet file.
Then look up your wallet address on an explorer such as mempool.space, to confirm what the current balance is.
Also, do not respond to any private messages.
Does everyone who needs help now have to post proof on the forum? I thought this forum was meant to help people with these kinds of problems.
Since you got your Bitcoin so early, you probably don't have a seed phrase because older wallets were non deterministic. You need to tell us how your coins were stored. I know then it was either the web wallets and Bitcoin Core.
Regardless of which one you used, you must safely extract the wallet dat file from your laptop and remember your old password, if you set one. Since you are dealing with a lot of bitcoin, you need to be extremely careful and avoid connecting your laptop to the internet. I'm sure other members will be happy to offer more help.
Or do yourself a favor and do not listen to this person, do not take pictures of your old laptop, of your Balance and stop offering any information about yourself and your Wealth. Particularly if your Topic is legitimate. If it is not, it is only another fake Topic on this forum that will get lost. If it is real, you do not have any thing to prove to any Internet stranger so stop here.
Assuming the Topic is legitimate, after doing what I just suggested, the first thing to do is STOP ANY OUTSIDE WORLD CONNECTION before moving on. Disconnect the laptop from the Internet. The laptop has not been updated long enough that there are a LOT of vulnerabilities and this is definitely not the time to risk any thing.
To get the next steps you need to tell us which Wallet software you have on the old laptop and whether there is any file or Seed that you have backed up. You will have to do a fresh, verified, safe and Secure Linux distribution install on another old computer or laptop and copy the Wallet backup or recovery Seed there.
First of all, do not accept any offers in your PM. There is a huge chance that all of them will be trying to scam you. Then, do a backup of your device and save it on multiple devices, secure everything as much as you can to protect yourself from potential hardware failure, so you don't lose the data.
Btw I have a few questions. What wallet were you using? Was it Bitcoin Core or Electrum? In Electrum, you can export seed phrases and write them down on paper but idk if that was possible in 2011's Electrum wallet. It might be better to move this thread in Development & Technical Discussion section.
PrivacyG there is no way anyone can steal his Bitcoin showing a balance, recovery seed is needed for that, what I am trying to prevent is false or fake stories, anyone can write the same story as OP, a piece of evidence will make the story a solid one.
He claimed he pulled out the laptop from basement, we all know how that laptop is going to look like, oldy scratchy and dusty, evidence is all I asked or people will start creating unreal stories on here.
Anyways, congrats to him if of course this is a real one.
I never said somebody can steal his Bitcoin from showing a Balance.
But someone may look after IPs and other fingerprints. Depending on the pictures they will provide, more information about their identity or location may leak. A stranger may look after his 30 Bitcoin as OP seems pretty vulnerable at this point. It is stupid to prove complete strangers that you are Rich.
And if the story is solid and proved with evidence, what? It does not change any thing or make any thing better. They will only leave more fingerprints for curious minds to inspect. There are enough cases of people tortured and killed for their Bitcoin, OP does not need to be a new such case.
Well op if this your update is true , you have falling to the class of billionaire, just mind how you handle the laptop and ensure all files and well backed and protected avoid copying of file will external device that is capable of transferring data which may display or disposed your information until proper measure of securing the Bitcoin is taken.
Don't be in rush to taking decision under pressure for making your details public may offer you different options that if proper decision is not taken will leads to regret.
IPs and fingerprints? That's scary, so me showing proof of payment using Bitcoin on here is stupid and unsafe? I have even revealed addresses in pictures, I never thought about the possibility of revealing fingerprints or IP. I guess I have believed in this proving of a thing because of what the forum members request for but at this junction it is better not to prove anything anymore unless it deals with other things apart from wallets.
I have read about home invasion where a streamer mistakenly shared his location through receipts and also calendar on the wall, I guess that mistake got him killed, pictures are dangerous and thanks for the extra warnings. IPs and Fingerprints through pictures sound new to me, I will keep this at the back of my mind.
Interesting story. I hope it's true because you can never take anything you read on forums at face value. In any case, if it is true, it's exciting because the vast majority of stories we see are the opposite: people who lost their bitcoin keys ask for help to recover them and never succeed.
I think this thread would be better placed in the technical section, I'm going to report it. I remember there was a similar case where people from that forum helped.
Right now I know a lot of people will PM you in other to help you on what to do next please don't reply to any messages if anyone has anything to tell you in other to help you let them write it down in this post, I repeat don't reply any message here or follow there rules there are a lot of scammers here.
First try if you can remember the password to that your wallet and if you still have the seed phrase if you don't have the seed phrase anymore and you still have your password then withdraw that Bitcoin to another wallet and keep the password and seed phrase very well so anyone won't come in contact with it, and again I will advise you not to sell immediately even if you want to sell just sell a little bit and then hold the rest because Bitcoin will always grow more bigger.
Assuming OP isn't lying, why would OP give more reason to be targeted by criminal?
Considering the year 2010,
1. It's very likely the wallet software is Bitcoin Core (older version have name "Bitcoin-Qt" or "Bitcoin") instead.
2. Seed (as in recovery exist) didn't exist back then. So OP will be dealing with private key instead.
If your story is true the best thing to do is not to start discussing things on how you should go when you can help your self by simply locking up yourself in your room while you make your research and get everything done by yourself.
It will do you a lot of good to take your privacy seriously at this point and ensure that you don't start clicking on links they some people will be sending to your pm after your post, the amount you have should be your private life save yourself and save your money by being more private from now hence forth.
OP must be in a very happy mode now and the truth is that as he already made it public here now, scammers would start sending him PM's to assist OP but OP should be very careful not to listen to anybody with respect to this post he has made here in his DM. Anything about his discovery as he mentioned should be on this thread for transparency. Do not release any information about your location, laptop or email or phone number to anybody here. Avoid clicking of links sent to your dm by anybody play safe so you don't get into any trap that could cost your Bitcoin.
He is already gone.
We will never see any proof of what he said, Or it was too good to be true and he has already cashed out
Its full of these claims online...troll or just time waster. People could gain trust and visibility by just sharing these "fantastic" stories...
Anyway that made excepetional claims must show immediately proofs.
First, congratulations. But you mean you never remembered you had bought bitcoin and with all the news about bitcoin price gaining value up to thousands of dollars per bitcoin it still didn't occur to you that you had once bought some bitcoins and you should check into it?! I guess forgetting about your bitcoins over the years made you rather more richer to have remembered it just now.
You have to quickly move those coins to a cold wallet, not safe having it online wallet now you have remembered.
Don't do that! There's no need to upload pictures.
Seriously OP, do this! Backups, offline, take your time. Don't rush things, you don't want to be that guy who lost 30 Bitcoin due to a stupid mistake. Learn how to sign offline, learn how to securely store your coins, buy a Trezor hardware wallet from the official seller, create a plan where to send your Bitcoins, and don't send them all at once to an exchange. Your current security setup is probably non-existing, your laptop is old and vulnerable, so you need to learn how to secure your coins before bringing the laptop online.
Also, depending on where you live, be prepared to pay your taxes so you can legally spend your money.
Reminder: never sell all your Bitcoins, but you probably know that by now
Its possible that OP is reading the comments on this thread hoping to find the help he needs. Even if there is a 99% chance that OPs story may be make-believe, theres also a tiny chance that it might just be true and thats why we simply cant ignore every story that sounds too good to be true.
I know you are trying to verify if what OP said is actually true, but you shouldn't bother yourself with that because if OP is lying to us, there's nothing we are going to gain or lose even if OP shows proof of the 30BTC he's claiming to own. And because of security, it isn't advisable for OP to show his assets online so that he won't be a target for scammers and kidnappers.
Yes, it's very possible for one to have bought Bitcoin at such low value and forgotten about it, most especially if that individual might have got multiple Bitcoin wallets over the years, where he forgot some and still had access to others. Because judging by the statement O.P gave above saying "the 30 BTC was bought during the early days while participating in Bitcoin faucet", and it is obvious he might have had multiple Bitcoin faucet he was doing and forgotten about this very one, and the wallets connected to it. While secondly, since the Bitcoin was in his old laptop and the laptop was still in his basement, then that alone might have also contributed to the reason why he wasn't able to have access to it too. Because who knows how long his laptop might have been in his basement? Nobody knows..