Bitcoin Forum

So, a few years ago I won 3 bitcoins in an online poker freeroll. I transferred it to a bitcoin client and promptly forgot about it because it was only about $15 back then. A few months later my hard-drive overheated. I brought it to Staples, and they recovered all files under the Users directory that weren't hidden, and (I assume) threw out the now broken hard-drive.

So, obviously, the wallet is lost as it was stored under APPDATA. Is there any way to recover the bitcoins, or are they lost forever? If it means anything, though I doubt it does, I still have the transaction keys, and I'm still running the same computer.

They are out of circulation.
With today's means there is no way to get them back.
Bitcoin wouldn't be safe otherwise.

Sorry about that.

If you get back to use Bitcoin I suggest you use a client with deterministic addresses. E.g. spectrum.

The only thing to will need the seed and you can always recover all the addresses.

20999997 coins left.

They are lost unfortunately unless you were using a wallet like electrum and you happen to remember the seed.
But i guess electrum wasn't even out back then.

Yeah, I expected as much. Still wanted to try asking just in case.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

When governments get their hand into bitcoin, old adresses storing bitcoins without any activity(in maybe 3 years or less), I'm sure the funds will be put to the worst use possible :D

Are you sure that you understand how bitcoin works? :-X

Yes, are you unsure how much governments want money?
The question is what will happen in the future. The US government still has stockpiles of gold, quite a lot owned by other governments. I think it's very safe to assume the US will want to have some control over things. And the amount of lost and unrecoverable bitcoins, can be a potential gold mine...

Clearly you have no understanding of how bitcoin works and what is possible.

I think what will be made possible in the future...

yep, sounds like out of circulation. it's funny how all these "i lost my coins" stories pop up when BTC rises so high in value.. but the only thing you can do learn from the mistake. btw, $15 today in BTC is .0214.

A future where the government can easily figure out private keys and decides to use that skill to steal coins from old addresses?
Doesn't make much sense...