Got a free bitcoin about ten years ago but where is it?

donglefan

Hello, did anyone here sign up for a bitcoin website about ten years ago which had a free offer of a free bitcoin just for joining?   I did but only just remembered, but I don't remember where it was!  If anyone could jog my memory of where this money saving offer was, I'd appreciate a tip.

TimSynths

Get looking! £36k today and been as high as £46k in the last month, should see out £80k by years end- hope that motivates you. Good luck!

To add- if you do find it (I hope you do) move it to a wallet on your smart phone, I use Trust Wallet and Coinbase wallet.

donglefan

Thank you Tim.  I have no idea which website it was.  Since it was a free offer just for signing up, I wonder if someone here at MSE did the same thing and could kindly share the name of the website?

TimSynths

Have you ran a search on your pc (is it still the same one) if you have transferred the coin to it it would look something like this-

"39pkrLJrRjojtuRYsrdGn3Dbg4tZ6HpNxZ"

If it was simply left on an exchange from 10 years ago it may be lost now, in the early days a lot of exchanges came and went which is why if you do find it you must move it to a secure storage wallet.

Exchanges are a lot more reliable today. Ten years ago is a long time before I dipped my toes into the world of crypto so have no ideas what was in use then but Coinbase got going in 2012, nearly 10 years ago so may be worth trying to log in there.

Scottex99

donglefan said:

Thank you Tim.  I have no idea which website it was.  Since it was a free offer just for signing up, I wonder if someone here at MSE did the same thing and could kindly share the name of the website?

10 years ago, it was in it's very infancy, there was barely any exchanges or cold/hot wallets around most likely (I only have personal experience from 2017).

Bitcoin Faucet was one website that I know of that gave away BTC for free in the very early days.

How about search for Bitcoin/BTC in your emails/docs/files etc and see if anything comes up.

Failing that, you could buy some of your own today 

TimSynths

A quick Google throughs this up- "The first Bitcoin exchange, BitcoinMarket.com, started operating in March 2010, with 1 BTC worth just $0.003. If you’d invested $100 at this point - and you’d have needed to be a soothsayer to do so - you’d have been able to get yourselves 33,333.33 of them.

donglefan

Thank you Tim and Scott.   I wouldn't have transferred it onto my computer, as I didn't understand what it was at the time.
I fired up my old computer to see if there's anything useful under btc or bitcoin - but no.
Maybe in ten years there will be companies tracking them down, since so many have been lost.

donglefan

Could it even have been a 'mining' website - I'm unsure?
If it was at an exchange in my name and the exchange has subsequently folded, is it still out there with my name on it, waiting to be found?

Scottex99

Can't remember what the estimated figure of lost BTC is but it's high, at least 20% of the entire circulation.

And with the current value, you're talking billions and billions of GBP/EUR/USD sitting on locked wallets, on old PCs, in landfills etc. Actually even in modern times it's quite easy to misplace your private key or seed phrase, I'm definitely much more lax on my coin admin than I should be.

Sounds extremely unlikely that you'll find anything from all those years ago but never too late to start your own crypto journey anyway

TimSynths

donglefan said:

Could it even have been a 'mining' website - I'm unsure?
If it was at an exchange in my name and the exchange has subsequently folded, is it still out there with my name on it, waiting to be found?

Part of its attraction is that there are no names attached to the coins, its all anonymous and decentralised. There are companies already that hunt down lost coins for a % of recovery I imagine this business will only grow overtime.

eskbanker

donglefan said:

Hello, did anyone here sign up for a bitcoin website about ten years ago which had a free offer of a free bitcoin just for joining?   I did but only just remembered, but I don't remember where it was!  If anyone could jog my memory of where this money saving offer was, I'd appreciate a tip.

Much like this guy then

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55658942