Bitcoin Forum

People, I bought Bitcoin in late 2009. Please help me access them. I’ll give 500 Bitcoin to anyone who helps me get them! I feel like I used a PayPal service to buy them and I’m not 100% sure, but I know I had a debit card if this was possible. I bought them to buy something illegal at that time but never went through with the purchase. What illegal sites were available at that time and what wallets, what sites to buy with a debit card or PayPal? I know the last 4 digits of the card number that I used but I called the bank today and they said they only keep records for 7 years…

I cannot tell because 2009 is too early. Was there anybody selling Bitcoin as early as 2009? After all, Bitcoin was so easy to mine back then. Are you sure you don't have even the faintest idea of where you probably bought your Bitcoin? As far as open history is concerned, the first Bitcoin transaction in the open world took place in 2010 when Laszlo bought pizzas. The first trading where Bitcoin was assigned a USD price was also in 2010. Silk Road, probably the most popular marketplace in Bitcoin's history, came out in 2011.

Indeed, this was way too early if bought around 2009. I am not also aware that as early as that year, Bitcoin was already being sold. In attempt to regain access to the wallet used during that time, it is theoretically feasible though massive effort and assistance, but honestly speaking it is practically close to impossible.

We can try searching on Deepweb if you know what specific item you are buying and also try to remember if you use any email that time to purchase. Most the online shop early 2009 requires an email, cellphone number or anything to send the receipt, summary of order and order confirmation. If you really use PayPal that time. There's a high chance you have an email confirmation that time. Try to access it since email doesn't delete old records.

And also if you know the device you are using that time. Try to browse on your browser.

Good luck on recovering and I hope you will find it. Cheers

no one bought bitcoin in 2009.
bitcoins value wasnt even valued in 2009

there were not even any illicit sites in 2009 using bitcoin
things like silkroad didnt even start until 2011

if someone was able to hack some random over 500coin stash(impossible).. why would they hand them to you

.. nice try topic creator, but your not the first to fake a loss in hopes people can hack you some free btc.

Yeah, I don't believe it either. We see stories from time to time of people asking for help to recover bitcoin, but they are usually much more credible than this one. Even if it were true, it would be impossible to recover anything, because the OP remembers practically nothing.

Unfortunately, bitcoin transactions is irreversible, if you already sent it to someone or anyone had access to it, then there's no way you can take it back.

As for the date, I agreed what mentioned above, bitcoin is worthless at that time at least in USD value.

271 USD worth of bitcoins is huge today. So try to identify few things first,

1. Source of purchase
2. Method used to purchase because Paypal wasn't providing bitcoin services in 2009. You must have purchased from a moner and sent paypal money.
3. Banks are legally liable to keep your records for 7 years so you can't force them for information older than 7 years.
4. How did you receive the bitcoins from the seller? At that time, only bitcoin core wallet was available so you must have used one. Soo if you have wallet.dat file in your old computer

Try to identify these things first.

OP, I can say the same thing too. I remember that I bought something, maybe Bitcoin, or maybe not Bitcoin. But I remember I spent over 200 bucks on something.
All your data is so vague that it seems like a fantasy. You know that you are a millionaire, but you do not know where your millions are. ;D
Well, if it's easier for you to live, knowing that you have bitcoins, and not knowing where they are, you can only say one thing - everyone is going crazy in their own way.

If this were true then why would you wait until now to try and get help getting your Bitcoin?  That amount of BTC would have made you wealthy back in 2011 and by 2013 it would have been an unimaginable amount of money for an individual.  By 2017 you would have likely gone mad with the 'what ifs' playing through your head.

I'm fairly certain there was no way to purchase with a credit card back then either.  It's possible you were scammed or dealt OTC with an individual.  In any scenario you would need your private key as any online wallet from 2009 would have gone bye bye a long long time ago.  A nice story, but I'd say likely fake. 

But who cares about the op story? at $271 at the time it was possible to buy all the bitcoins that had been mined (and that was too expensive too). Instead of Lazlo and the pizza seller who valued bitcoin rather expensively with 2 servings of pizza back then, Op should be more famous now that I think he was priced bitcoin expensive more earlier. Also, when Op asked what wallet it was, he should have understood that in those years bitcoin-Qt was the only bitcoin wallet platform.

You are clearly lying. Back in 2009 people didn't even know what bitcoin was and you would have been lucky if someone even accepted bitcoin for free from you let alone sell you something in return. When bitcoin was used as payment it was years later and the price of it was higher. The illicit activities that lasted a year or two didn't start until 2011 as it was mentioned earlier which means you couldn't have bought more than 500 bitcoin with only $271.

Next time you want to create a lie at least put some effort into it. :)

It's a fantasy, right 😅. We usually see such sob stories but this takes a lead. As other users have identified that Bitcoin wasn't even worth much an attention in 2009 to be thrown cash at, perhaps OP meant a later date that's further from 2009. Let's see how they also react to this.

There were no illegal sites at the time, so your story is not correct.

Moreover, you should be held to account that your goal was/is to 'buy something illegal'. In 2009, such actions would have threatened the existence of bitcoin.

This is 100% made up story. ;D
OP,what illegal thing did you want to buy?Were you surfing the darkweb?
Do you even know how a Bitcoin wallet works?
You don't know any passwords,seed phrases,private keys...How the hell do you expect to recover those BTC(if you really bought them,which I highly doubt)?
There's no magical Bitcoin recovery service,that will recover BTC that were lost 12 years ago for free and without the usage of any private keys,seed phrases,etc.. ;D
You have a Paypal account.I guess that you could find that Paypal transaction in your transaction archive and maybe you will find out who the seller was(and his Paypal email).
Maybe his Paypal email is still active(or mostly likely not). ;D

If you are looking for the site where you have your bitcoin on it, I'm sure the site had already disappeared with your bitcoin as $271 is probably 3000 BTC more or less, and that's a lot of money for the owner of the site to retire and enjoy the money. And if ever you'll recover that money, I doubt you'll give away 500 btc or over $24 million at the present price.

@OP I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it wasn't 2009 that you've purchased those bitcoins since there's nobody that has bought bitcoins at that year as said. 2011 onwards, there really were those people that have purchased a lot and forgotten their wallets and they're considered lost forever and so as yours, it belongs to that category. And if this is a made up story, try harder because no one will believe with the details that you've given.

If we look at this thread posted by @DdmrDdmr -> 12 years today since the first known price was set for BTC (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364063.msg58104884#msg58104884), then we can see that Sirius (Martti Malmi) sold 5050 BTC to PayPal in late 2009 using the New Liberty Standard. I'm not saying that the OP is telling the truth, but there remains a reasonable doubt that he still managed to buy BTC using the already mentioned service.

This is also possible that some fascinated with the BTC would certainly love to accept BTC, at least to test it how it feels and/or to give it a boost at the initial level. I mean this is possible. However, it is also possible that someone is trying to rewrite some history or to be part of the history as like CSW is trying to rewrite it.

Human mind is very complex. One cannot rely on human mind to correctly remember things. Not 100%.
There may be that OP is trolling. There may be that OP tries to "rewrite history". And there may be that OP just doesn't remember some things right and the year can be anything, even 2015. (of course, it may also be 500 mBTC)
I agree with Franky here, OP should get his story right first.

A made up story I think for no reason whatsoever.

If he really wants to get back the Bitcoins that he "bought" then he must share more information here but just by seeing his profile, he only has one post and its this thread only. Not saying that OP is lying but if I lost a huge amount, I will have a sense of urgency and will share any information possible so that people here can help me but in this case he isn't.

Well, if this is true (0% chance it is) then good luck searching your bought Bitcoins.

My concern is why after more than 11 years , you come here to look for this crypto? and like what you said the banks only keep the data for 7 years so obviously there is small way that you can find which bank details will you use.
I'm afraid that this can be fund back mate , yeah your reward is really high but the thing is there is no way how to take it back from what you have explained here.

That's interesting but OP's story is still full of plot holes and the fact that the account is a throwaway one doesn't help either. Confessing to illicit activities when bitcoin wasn't really accepted anywhere is another sing while offering $24 million for help from random strangers on the internet is the last nail in the coffin of OP's shadiness.

There is no doubt that such stories always arouse suspicion, but at least a 1% chance should be left that the OP is telling the truth to some extent. As historical facts say, it was possible to buy and sell Bitcoin in late 2009, although the OP has so far shown no evidence that it did just that. Whatever the truth, even if the OP really bought that BTC, he obviously doesn't remember what he did with it - if he was intelligent enough to send everything to BitcoinCore, maybe he has a backup file somewhere.

true story or not,
no bank or paypal ever had bitcoin storage.
so none of the bank or paypal story is relevant.

as for any exchange or darknet site.. they are all dead, no getting them back up and running.

his only 1% shot if true would be is if he luckily enough moved some unspent coins to bitcoin-QT (the only node wallet individuals had to independently store coin private keys on)

if he did do this then that 1% chance is only if he still has that computer and able to find the old wallet.dat file.

but the fishy part, was giving flimsy info and then asking a hacker to get him some coin without proof

I was thinking that's just a joke and you were just kidding, how exactly could you buy bitcoin in 2009, and who did sell you the bitcoins because as far as I know bitcoin had no value back in 2009 it wasn't trading like it is today because there were not many people who knew about bitcoin and the cryptocurrencies and even these people were not buying one selling bitcoins too much. Also, the amount of money you mentioned here you used to but bitcoins was totally enough to buy all the mined bitcoins during that time, I suggest you think more and change your imaginations regarding this story because none gonna believe it.

true or not, it's an old story. well, it was 2009. so much has changed for now. if your memory only ever buys it, then there are many things you need to remember, such as where you put the bitcoins you bought at that time, passwords, and others. Besides, if you buy it on a site, I don't know if that site still exists or not. Until now, there have been very many sites, or exchanges that have closed due to bankruptcy or scams.

There were one article I found in the internet who bought Bitcoin late in 2009.
There were also a post about a certain transaction late 2009.
This.

So, There might be other people who bought Bitcoin without them being published in the internet. The OP could be telling the truth that he bought Bitcoin in 2009, but with a very slight chances that he is telling the truth about the kind of scenario and the 500Btc reward. Bitcoin transactions in the dark web has already vanished.
Posting such topic here doesn't make any sense now because nobody can crack down those lost Bitcoin If he only has this very limited information (even doubtful if it's true).

There were a handful of people selling bitcoin in late 2009. At least one of these people limited the amount they sold to a max of $10.

OP's story is very unlikely, considering that he/she remembers nothing, when it would have required a very deliberate choice to install such experimental software. Even on the very, very unlikely chance that they are telling a hint of truth, they couldn't recover anything if they lost their wallet because there were no other wallet softwares. No one can help them, except maybe the heat death of the universe.

When you bought bitcoin in 2009, you should remember where you store your bitcoin, whether in your Hard Drive, flash disk or else and you still have or keep the key phrase or all necessary things to access the wallet back. Without having that, you can not have your bitcoin and it will not get back to you. Maybe you bought bitcoin at dark web or underground forum because I think bitcoin was not so popular as in 2012-2013. The key is in where you store that wallet because I think maybe only bitcoin-qt was the only wallet available that year but I am not sure about that as I did not know about bitcoin.

Op looks like someone who doesn't care enough so he made a topic like this to get attention :D

if we go back then it is true, there are a lot of false loss claims being made, their purpose is uncertain but treating people like this is just a waste of time

Sounds like a pointless story that is going nowhere. There are simply too many possibilities to start and just knowing what payment method you used is utterly pointless - it will not gain you any access to the coins at this point. There have been many exchanges who have been hacked in that time, most notably "MtGox" which was probably the biggest player at the time. You're saying you'll give 500 bitcoin, but you don't have even a shred of a clue to go on so it is a waste of time. Just let it go and move on, accept that money has never existed to you or it may eat you up inside. You forgot about it for so long it is meaningless to your life now.

According to the progress of the market, this doesn't look like a real incident. Majority of the users have mentioned it to be a written story. However, even if it is a true incident and Op had made a transaction it isn't easy to retrieve it back with the information available with OP.

As per my understanding this thread could bring in more awareness on the real market of cryptocurrencies.

Another important thing, he haven't spend on buying, and if he have got such a big number then it is from some early giveaway.

If this one talks about 2011-2012 then i might believe but this one talks about 2009 on where bitcoin doesnt have any value or totally free then this one is actually a lie and theres no possible ways you coould able to buy it with Paypal or some sort of those times.
Therefore, most people on here do see the same thing which OP is totally telling some fantasies on here.  :D

seriously how you could have bought bitcoin and left it in a wallet and forgotten the wallet and the name of the wallet and you don't even have a private key, and as @franky1 said your story doesn't make sense, i particularly don't believe your story.. In any case, you let many years pass, because only now do you remember?


 ;D

he could have mined and didn't even need to spend money and who the hell sold by paypal back then? nobody

OP the answers here states that you are framing a story because your thread is not clear. This forum was created in 2009 by Satoshi and Bitcoin was worth $0 as of 2009. Could it be that a member of this forum sold his own bitcoins to OP. Because, this is the only website he is able to remember and is asking for help here as well.

Op have you been in this forum in the past? If yes then make some detailed write up about your dispute and the development team can help you. Although your reward is too much and can sponsor a signature campaign for everyone in this forum as a vote of thanks to the forum.

If only your thread is clear the forum will be able to grant you help.

you ask us in this group about the fate of your bitcoin? I do not understand what you mean. You didn't specify where your bitcoins are now but you gave a reward.
I have doubts about your story, you should provide a screenshot proof or bitcoin address so that it can be evidence in this thread.

Nah, I'm convinced that OP is lying and is just creating a random shit story. Besides, the answers above are more convincing than OP who's just trying to guess or just asking someone to hack something without a valid proof and I don't think there were merchant of Bitcoin that time as most of the stories here happened a year after or so. So, I am convinced that it's impossible to buy Bitcoin from someone using a debit card that time.

Even if you’re able to know the last four digits of the card and the bank is able is able to verify that you bought Bitcoin with the card, what exactly would anyone be doing with such information, how does it help you recover your bitcoin? If you’re going to be thinking of ways that you can recover your bitcoins, then these are not the details to be going after.

First of all, you have to know the particular coin wallet that you were using that time or you used that time when you bought the bitcoin, which is where it is possibly stored now. And another thing is whether it’s a non-custodial wallet that gives you full access and your private keys, or it’s just another custodial wallet that requires your email and passwords to access. If it’s an online wallet that requires email, you can sort it out with the developers of the wallet. Then if it’s a decentralized one that requires private keys, then you have to find the keys, if really you backed it up.

The OP didn't even mention what Wallet he was using. he only mentions the purchase with paypal. The purchase chronology is unclear and confusing. If you really want to get help from other people, complete the purchase chronology in detail. 2009 was the year this forum existed and bitcoin buying still didn't exist. anyone who owns bitcoin in 2009 is a very lucky person to be able to hold it until now.