Six months ago (28 June, 2020) I wrote (1) about a person who decided to seed the market with Bitcoin. The generous poster to Reddit offered (and more than delivered!) to give 10 people $50 USD of BTC, at the time, around .005 BTC (500,000 Satoshis) after netting for fees. 1.0 BTC was around $9,200 USD then.
The 250 or so folks who commented on OP’s post ran the gamut from Bitcoin Beggars to skeptics to those concerned it was an intelligence effort to harvest Bitcoin addresses. And even after the 10+ awards (Op generously provided 12 gifts) were made, many people posted addresses knowing the offer had expired; they were “out of work”, or “homeless single mothers”, newbies or minors who didn’t know how to get Bitcoin otherwise, or just hoping that more offers might be on their way.
I am one of the recipients of OP’s largesse. It’s interesting to think that OP’s $6,000 USD giveaway would have grown to over $26,000 (or the $49 USD net gift quadrupled to each recipient). But in OP’s own words a few months later, “YTD I have given away 40 Bitcoin” representing “70% of my Bitcoin fortune.” Regretfully, the benefactors says, “the remaining 30% of Bitcoin was stolen.”
I was quite moved about OP’s generosity in giving away $6,000 USD to strangers, and the commitment to Bitcoin to seed the market. Hearing the giveaway was more like 40 BTC … or more like $1.6 MILLION USD at today’s prices … I am astounded.
OP published a list of transactions as proof there was delivery. Here is one of the addresses, showing the .005-ish awards (2). Most of the recipients moved (“spent”) the gift. A few have left it untouched.
I tried to reach out to OP to once again thank them and see how things are going. Although they posted to Reddit just a few days ago, I was not able to send a message directly.
I am glad to say that although the loss of 17 BTC - or two-third of a million dollars at today’s market - would be devastating to many of us, OP’s other postings show a diverse group of investments including Vuzix stock, which had a big jump in November. More power to this generous person.
I began the original article asking, “Do you believe that "no good deed goes unpunished"?”
So I ask you to give me your thoughts in the comments here:
- Were people foolish to have provided an address to receive BTC from an anonymous benefactor?
- Was the benefactor foolish to have let the community know they had BTC to spare?
- Will the increasing popularity of BTC reduce attacks such as OP suffered? You may recall that Phiip R. Zimmerman would tell people that the more people who use PGP, the less likely anyone would seem out of the ordinary for encrypting their messages. If everyone has addresses, is there security through obscurity?
- Alternatively, will more wallets and more users (especially including less sophisticated users) make crypto easy pickin’s?
- If the loss can happen to OP, what chance do grandma and grandpa have?
(1) https://www.publish0x.com/blockchain-auditor/free-bitcoin-what-s-the-catch-was-it-worth-it-xkkenpg
(2) https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/33JKbtwb3d6XM3vZR3AFZ6TUYArtdRNiQW
