# Lost/Stolen Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Grieving Thread



## Homer J. Fong (Jul 18, 2021)

Sometime between 2010-2012 I learned about Bitcoin. I had just built a decent Gaming PC and decided why not see how long it takes to mine this cryptocurrency of the future. I installed GUIminer and registered an account with a mining pool called Bitcoin CZ (now SlushPool). After a month of mining I accrued one mighty Bitcoin in my account. In my infinite wisdom I determined that this was a total waste of my electricity and also was going to shorten the lifespan of my computer. So I stopped caring about "Buttcoins" and went back to doing what was important, playing Crysis and Team Fortress 2.

A few years later Bitcoin breaks out at $150 and I try to log into my account. What I didn't realize was that mining pools like Slush has a little sneaky policy; if an account is inactive for a entire year the account will be deleted and any accrued bitcoin left in the account is then taken by the pool.






My late Grandfather once told me about his Baseball Card Collection and how his parents threw it out, had they let him keep them they would have been worth a fortune. Bitcoin is my own Mickey Mantle. Whenever I read about Bitcoin I'm always left with the what if scenario of what would my life be like if I truly believed the then wild speculation that Bitcoin would become a valuable currency. I imagine myself being nigga rich with a giant compound in Santa Monica with a yacht. I cope by thinking about all the people who win the Lottery and then go bankrupt and/or get themselves killed. Still it kills me that I didn't do the bare minimum and transfer that stupid Bitcoin into a wallet. Could at least be a little more financially comfortable.

One thing that really bothers me is that there's not much online about Slush Pool and their practice of deleting accounts. Google doesn't turn up any articles covering this and even when I look at Reddit I see little complaints over the practice.


Frankly I think this practice while apparently legal is pretty fucked up. I wonder how many bitcoins have been claimed by Slush for "technical maintenance." So fuck you Marek, you owe me a bitcoin!


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## Boris Blank's glass eye (Jul 18, 2021)

There was one genius sysadmin at my old uni who definitely didn't become a bitcoin billionaire: he used logged time on the mainframe to mine in 2009.
IIRC he didn't end up in a cell because this kind of shit wasn't a crime back then but the uni sued him for a substantial amount of money. Got made into a nice example to discourage other intrepid early adopters.


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## pedoguyguykrai (Jul 18, 2021)

sorry my cat stole your bitcoins, she stole mine and refused to give it back.


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## serious n00b (Jul 18, 2021)

Boris Blank's glass eye said:


> he used logged time on the mainframe to mine in 2009 but the uni sued him for a substantial amount of money


"Nooo, how dare you use something you've paid for!"


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## Coffee Shits (Jul 18, 2021)

Had a friend who lost several whole BTC when Mt. Gox got hacked. It was an impulse buy when it was worth virtually nothing so he wasn't too broken up about it, but I was shocked to hear it. Dude's got money problems, too.


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## Boris Blank's glass eye (Jul 18, 2021)

serious n00b said:


> "Nooo, how dare you use something you've paid for!"


No, he never paid for it. Should have made it clear.


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## Blue Screen of Death (Jul 18, 2021)

I remember hearing about it when learning about TOR markets and shit, and I thought the concept of a digital currency was cool but I never really went in on it.
I don't really beat myself up over it, but I do wonder if I had gotten in so early, how much money would I have currently?


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## Pee Wee Herman (Jul 18, 2021)

This is why hardware wallets and nodes exist. The declaration of "not your keys, not your coin" is a fact that every crypto owner should take to heart. Exchanges will find any way to scam you out of what you put in regardless if it's bullshit transfer fees or timeline policies like Slush did here.


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## spinal gas chamber (Jul 26, 2021)

Yeah I knew about it then. I thought it was dumb then, still think it’s dumb and I never mined or bought any, even when 10 bucks could have re-regged my SA account or bought 10k bitcoins.

 Even if I did the 10k bitcoins thing (I re-regged), I would have sold half when that 10 bucks turned into a hundred, etc etc. I would never have had perfect knowledge to keep them until whatever year (2017? 2016? 2018? One of those) was exactly right. So, I’m happy never having pozloaded my negholep.


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## JenkinsJinkies (Aug 3, 2021)

If $150 got you to actually look into this after atleast a year of not even logging in, there's no way you would've held onto it past $1k or the first dip lol


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## Homer J. Fong (Aug 3, 2021)

JenkinsJinkies said:


> If $150 got you to actually look into this after atleast a year of not even logging in, there's no way you would've held onto it past $1k or the first dip lol


Good point. I definitely prefer thinking of being the fool who lost his bitcoin vs the fool who sold it for a pittance.


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