Found BTCs?

[WuLabsWuTecH]

So I just got into NameCoins b/c my mining pool is now also issuing those.  I went to register at a namecoin exchange and got an error that my email was already in use.  Weird, i thought, but I guess I could have set up an account without remembering it.  I went to retrieve my password and logged into the account without problem (it was a password reset so I have no idea if it's one of my typical passwords or not).  Funny thing is that once I logged in, there were BTC there and NMC and all sorts of other currency there that I have no recollection of putting there.  We're talking a pretty big amount, even if it was from a decade ago when I dabbled in BTC and then forgot about it, there is no way I had that many.  We're off by a few orders of magnitude.

I figured that they were accidentally transmitted to a wrong address or something, but since BTC is untraceable, how do I return this money?

There is one more possibility, which is someone used my email address to signup for an account.  The email I use for this account is something very generic, like bob@yahoo.com (not actually it, but as an example).  Could this actually be an active account that someone is using with a fake email address?

What do I do here?

[ct1aic]

Change your email & site password and transfer the BTC to your actual wallet... 

[firefop]

Even assuming they registered with your email address... how would they have enabled the account without confirming email address?

Maybe you're just not remembering it... or it's some glitch on the exchanges side. Either way I say... enable second factor authentication and count yourself lucky... since trying to source the other 'owner' of your account seems nearly impossible.

[SkRRJyTC]

Send some of the BTC to me to forensically examine.

19g5hg1xiSigar1uRqqSWnpAtqBZ3h3dge

[ct1aic]

Send some of the BTC to me to forensically examine.

19g5hg1xiSigar1uRqqSWnpAtqBZ3h3dge

And the rest to me, to see if it's Radioactive... 

[AliceWonder]

My guess it is stolen currency to begin with and the account was created through an exploit in the web interface.

Change your password on your e-mail account though just in case that has been compromised and you never knew it.

[Abdussamad]

I bet your email account got hacked. Also maybe your computer has malware in it.

[torbank]

We're talking a pretty big amount, even if it was from a decade ago when I dabbled in BTC and then forgot about it, there is no way I had that many.

A decade?

[WuLabsWuTecH]

it's a gmail account so I looked through the ip logs and nothing seemed out of the ordinary except a few from foreign countries that were blocked by gmail.  Ran malware scan on this computer and nothing came up.  But I have used school computers, work computer etc before.  Fortunately, this email is not one I use for my actual stuff and is a throwaway email so I'm not too worried.  But I'm guessing that since there is no way to figure out where it came from (and it may just have come from past WULabs as a gift to the present WULabs) I can ethically keep it?  (And I seriously doubt I would have left this amount of BTC in an online exchange account and forgotten about it for ~5 or 6 years).  We're talking quite a bit of zeros...

[WuLabsWuTecH]

We're talking a pretty big amount, even if it was from a decade ago when I dabbled in BTC and then forgot about it, there is no way I had that many.

A decade?

idk if it's actually been a decade...  I first dabbled in BTC shortly after it came out.  Right as I entered high school I believe.  I would have been 13 or 14 at the time?  Maybe it was late in high school.  But I played with it, but it wasn't worth anything and you couldn't really do anything with it so I quit mining after some time and forgot all about it until earlier this year.

[Eb0la]

what pool   I want to try my e-mails there too!

[Voogru]

You found my coins! Thanks.

Go ahead and send them to 1GCPtL8Xj1yvkfcPUgsc4MrAHc48Rzn9b3, be sure to keep 10% for yourself as a reward.



But seriously, bitcoin isn't a decade old. So I wonder if this is even real. Pictures or it didn't happen.

[QuestionAuthority]

Can I have your autograph! I've never met anyone here with integrity.

[WuLabsWuTecH]

You found my coins! Thanks.

Go ahead and send them to 1GCPtL8Xj1yvkfcPUgsc4MrAHc48Rzn9b3, be sure to keep 10% for yourself as a reward.



But seriously, bitcoin isn't a decade old. So I wonder if this is even real. Pictures or it didn't happen.

A decade is a guesstimate of when I was bitcoining.  I graduated in 2008 and just graduated college last year so maybe closer to 5 years


I was a technogeek in high school and built my own computers and such.  So it was rightabouts there.

I guess if I can find that old wallet address I can show that to you from where I kept the BTC for all these years?  But that would require plugging in my old computer (I've since moved to more modern equipment...)

The other thing is I haven't tried signing up for a new account with this exchange.  It could be that like some of the mining pools or exchanges, you don't need to click a verification link?

But yes, if it's someone who made an honest mistake I want to get them their BTC back.  If it's someone who's playing games and thought they could use my email for free, I'm keeping the BTC.  and if it's a high school me who forgot about my gift to myself, I'll sing happy birthday to me all the way to the bank!

[firefop]

it's a gmail account so I looked through the ip logs and nothing seemed out of the ordinary except a few from foreign countries that were blocked by gmail.  Ran malware scan on this computer and nothing came up.  But I have used school computers, work computer etc before.  Fortunately, this email is not one I use for my actual stuff and is a throwaway email so I'm not too worried.  But I'm guessing that since there is no way to figure out where it came from (and it may just have come from past WULabs as a gift to the present WULabs) I can ethically keep it?  (And I seriously doubt I would have left this amount of BTC in an online exchange account and forgotten about it for ~5 or 6 years).  We're talking quite a bit of zeros...

I think, without any way to track down the 'owner' you should have no compunction about keeping it. But hey if you'd like to start a small charity fund with some of it feel free to toss me PM. I'm doing largely mildly-speculative investment management for my family and friends - mostly just arbitrage, and you're welcome to park some coin with me for awhile and see how it grows.

[AliceWonder]

I really suspect they are stolen or black market and that account was used as part of their laundering.

If the web interface was open to an sql injection attack (lots are, crappy lazy coders don't use prepared statements and don't validate input) the account could have been created without needing e-mail verification. Especially if they don't use a salted hash. Insert e-mail and a hash and now they have account that isn't tied to them.

There's no way to know who they coins were stolen from, or what drugs were bought with them, keep them.

[farfiman]

It belongs to pirate...

[odolvlobo]

Does the exchange have a history of transactions for your account? Maybe the transaction history will shed some light.

[farlack]

Well if you don't want your 'dirty' money, you can give me a small business loan to be repaid with interest of clean money.

PM Me

[dhenson]

Just because my interest has been piqued... what kind of balances are we talking about here.  I'd like to know how envious I should be.