A viral revelation in China: Father’s 4000 Bitcoins from years ago are now worth over 2 billion RMB.
A statement has gone viral on Chinese social media, mainly on Twitter, after a guy allegedly discovered 4000 bitcoins his father had acquired in 2015 on an old Sony computer. These bitcoins are now valued at more than 2 billion RMB. However, rumours that the wallet was cracked to reclaim these bitcoins appear to be false.
On Monday, May 27th, well-known Chinese influencer Morris tweeted: “He said his dad’s 4000 bitcoins, bought in 2015, have been found.”
The news soon spread, garnering 1.2 million views.
According to Taiwanese media, a Chinese resident recently told acquaintances that his father purchased bitcoins in 2015 but lost them. Unexpectedly, they were discovered on the hard drive of an old computer. The hard disc was successfully cracked, and the bitcoins were retrieved.
The citizen’s screenshots reveal a bitcoin balance of over 4000, which is astonishing in value. The entire value hit 2 billion RMB when calculated at that day’s exchange rate with the US dollar.
CNMO discovered that the highest bitcoin price in 2015 was $495, or roughly 3586 RMB, and the lowest was $171, or approximately 1238 RMB.
Thus, his father’s 2015 purchase of 400 bitcoins cost between 4.95 million and 14.34 million RMB. Calculating over nine years, the value of these bitcoins climbed 143 times from their lowest purchasing cost, and 57 times from their maximum.
Chinese cryptocurrency media confirmed that the wallet address beginning with 18eY9, as indicated in the conversation data, does indeed contain 4000 bitcoins. These bitcoins were transmitted to the 18eY9 address on June 28, 2011 and have been inactive since. This address is currently ranked 410th on the Bitcoin Rich List.
The inquiry discovered that the wallet.dat file related with the 18eY9 address was available for purchase on the allprivatekeys website. In April 2020, a user on the well-known Bitcoin forum bitcointalk advised against acquiring wallet.dat files with lost passwords, especially the one associated with the wallet.dat files contain forgotten passwords, including one related with the 18eY9 address.
Furthermore, 176 wallet files totaling 44,791 bitcoins are posted for sale on the same website.