Bitcoin skyrocketed 10 times but you can’t get it! A Taiwanese netizen lost his private key and lost 1.5 BTC, offering a reward of 360,000 for cracking the code.

A Taiwanese netizen posted a bounty post on Threads yesterday (13th). The netizen said he was shocked to realize that he had transferred 1.5 Bitcoins to an international wallet (Huobi) five years ago. Now that the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed, he has lost his private key and his wealth is locked in an unopenable safe.
(Preliminary summary: The Internet celebrity emperor MrBeast’s Bitcoin private key was stolen and he cried: Fortunately, the thief was too stupid to keep all the BTC)
(Background supplement: This girl challenged “only using Bitcoin for 21 days” in Isla Mujeres, Mexico)

Contents of this article

Taiwan Threads Netizen "weiwei.179" posted a reward post yesterday (13th). The netizen said he was shocked to realize that he had transferred 1.5 Bitcoins to an international wallet (Huobi) five years ago. Now that the price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed, he has lost his private key and his wealth is locked in an unopenable safe.

This netizen added that he used the Huobi wallet for transfers, and later only transferred USDT and ETH out, and cleared his position after recognizing it. Unexpectedly, Bitcoin was still lying quietly on the chain. Faced with the dilemma of "having an address but no key," he was willing to pay NT$360,000 to anyone who helped retrieve it, and stressed that he would not provide his account number or personal information to prevent fraud.

Threads asked for help to launch the "Keyless Door"

This netizen described in Threads that when he was checking the lock-up income on the MAX platform, he accidentally discovered his Bitcoin purchase record in 2020; at that time, the unit price of a Bitcoin was less than NT$300,000, and he just invested it casually. Now the value has increased tenfold, but he cannot transfer it out because the key note he copied was missing. 1.5 Bitcoins. Helpless, he left a question:

"If I can't find the piece of paper, is there any way to decrypt it?"

The technical reality that the private key is irreversible

Looking through the comment area, the answer is almost no. A number of netizens commented that if the private key cannot be found, then this will be unsolvable. Some people even said bluntly after seeing the netizen's request for help: "Thanks for providing deflation, there are 1.5 fewer Bitcoins in circulation..."

We know that the Bitcoin private key is encrypted using elliptic curve cryptography, with a number of combinations of 2 to the power of 256. Brute force cracking is equivalent to accurately picking out a specific grain of sand in the desert. At this stage, no computer can accomplish this.

In addition, many novices often confuse wallet passwords with private keys. The wallet password is only used to unlock the software interface. If you forget it, you can try to restore it; the private key is directly related to the control of funds on the chain. Once it disappears, it is like a bank destroying its seal and ID card, and there is no window for reissue.

The capabilities and limits of professional recovery services

It is also worth mentioning that crypto asset recovery companies on the market, such as Covasecure or Puran Crypto Recovery, mostly target cases of "forgot password" or "missing a few words in the mnemonic phrase". In this case, the search scope can be narrowed, and the success rate can be as high as 90%; however, for people who have completely lost their private keys, they usually have no choice but to decline, because if they can be forcibly cracked, the security of the blockchain will no longer exist.

Because of this, some criminals have also taken advantage of investors' anxiety and claimed to be able to "reproduce private keys." The trick is often to collect high deposits first and then delay. Experts remind that regular companies mostly adopt a success fee system and will first check the address on the chain and possible backup traces, and will not easily collect money.

Proper preservation is the only answer

This incident once again proves the cruel truth of "not your private key, not your money" in the Web3 world. There is no customer service center for cryptocurrencies, and there are no reports of losses. The only truly effective line of defense is to back up your data in advance and keep it properly. After searching for various security suggestions, many experts reminded investors that they should write 12 to 24 mnemonic phrases on two pieces of fire-resistant paper and store them in different safes. They should also prepare a hardware wallet, set a PIN and two-factor authentication, and check it once a year to ensure that they are worry-free.

Going back to this Taiwanese netizen, maybe all he can do at this stage is to rummage through the cabinet to find the note from that year, or recall whether he took a memo photo. The chance of recovery is small, but the earlier you act, the less likely it is that the clue will disappear.

If you forget your wallet password, you still have a chance to find an expert to crack it, but if you remember the private key, it is really difficult to save it. Finally, I still wish this netizen can find the key to unlock the 1.5 Bitcoins.