Why do people buy old bitcoin addresses?

[BitcoinHunt3r]

usually they use it to get some Clamcoin, actually its already happened for long time. but this time they're booming again especially with some forks. if me i wouldn't sell any of my addresses for something like that

[1715479657]

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[Klestar]

allegedly they are using it to dig clams and sell to make profit out of it . I am curious now what the clam is, is it a currency ? or a coin?  i might be doing research for that and i think old wallets are valuable than other coins because its old and only limited can have that.

[reck1ess]

Is it for any wallet or they are buying bitcoin addresses with a specific wallet?
I'm just curious.

[Thasins61]

The reasons why the user purchases many old addresses, but most of these addresses are useless, which means that the purpose of using them will not be good.
Many Scammers need old address to prove they make old deals and get some trust.
also airdrops and new forks may be other reason.
Some are trying to use these addresses to prove that they have enough record and experience and therefore more confidence, especially in good sites that try to gain confidence as quickly as possible.

[reck1ess]

Many Scammers need old address to prove they make old deals and get some trust.
also airdrops and new forks may be other reason.

This make sense. Reading about replies about forks makes me confused. Although I'm still interested on how it works. But it make sense for scammer to buy old address to use as fake proof.

[johntrichfield]

That makes sense. Thanks guys!

[rajuahmed330]

There may be several reasons, for keeping the account secure in the midst of it, for the transaction to get faster, for the trx fees reduction. There may be many other reasons. For safety.

[jackolinyoko]

They want some forked coins in the past that might not be claimed yet thats why they are buying old addresses.

[greeklogos]

it could be a lot of different reasons!

but mostly they do it because in the past there has been altcoin airdrops based on the amount of bitcoin you had at a specific time (at a block height). for example if you had any bitcoin by the time bitcore fork happened (block #463604) you also have the same amount of bitcore (of course in this case i think the claiming period has ended).

there are a lot of these and to claim any of them you do need private keys.

I am pretty new here and it's the first time I hear something like that! Never thought that airdrops are spreading on the amount of coins of some past period of times. Very interesting! I am happy I learnt something new today 

[guxu219]

usually they use it to get some Clamcoin, actually its already happened for long time. but this time they're booming again especially with some forks. if me i wouldn't sell any of my addresses for something like that

Yeah I’ve seen a bunch of people wanting the clam for owning BITCOIN a long long time ago, you get like $20 worth of clam for having an address

[sunno330]

Because they used that btc address in everywhere for same address. Dev team can't think for bad or false. So people use their old bitcoin address.

[obinine]

Apart from clam and other forks some people need old used address to say launder money without say causing a lot of awareness by making it look real

[morrisby25]

Mainly so people can claim clam and some other forked coins. That’s why they only accept “some” private keys aka ones that don’t have any clam claimed

[PalindromemordnilaP]

I don't care if they bought it for a good reason because for me, buying those addresses to your own advantage is not a challenging one to earn a profit. I rather have to use my own than buying one since it is a very nice feeling to earn from scratch.

[wilhb81]

they use those old bitcoin adress in order to dig clam because clam has also a value that they could sell in order to get a profit out of them. currently the price of one clam coin is $11.83  based on CoinMarketCap. however you can also try to dig clam by yourself using your own old bitcoin adress but it could also takes time to do.

You're so right about the CLAM's statement. The reason why many people looking for old Bitcoin addresses - because they're using those accounts to dig/mine CLAM. Even though the price of CLAM is not tremendously high, but $10 per CLAM is still consider Ok...

[BitcoinPanther]

What would they use it for?

there are several forks that happen in Bitcoin, people buy old bitcoin address to try their lock to at least redeem the forked coins of the said address.  I do not see any reason except that one.  I also tried it myself, redeeming forked coins like BCH, BTG, Segwit2x .  And  it is worth the effort .

[lite]

What would they use it for?

there are several forks that happen in Bitcoin, people buy old bitcoin address to try their lock to at least redeem the forked coins of the said address.  I do not see any reason except that one.  I also tried it myself, redeeming forked coins like BCH, BTG, Segwit2x .  And  it is worth the effort .

It's worth the effort if they had balance and the seller of the address doesn't know about forks and stuffs, then you get lucky. simply buying an old bitcoin address that didn't had any BTC on it at the time of fork makes it useless. if i remember correctly even for CLAM there was one rule that it must have had a dust balance to be able to claim it.

[Stratobitz]

We know several hard foks have been taken place in past two yeasr, forked currencies like bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold were distributed according to your bitcoin balance existed during fork For example, if you had 1 bitcoin in your wallet during fork time, you would have received 1 bitcoin cash in your wallet.
Some websites buy these wallets to get forked currencies out of those wallet, you can sell your wallets on http://www.freebitcoins.com/

This thread just caught my eye. I ran two full nodes, back when I had a pretty decent sized mining farm.

We wrote a script that literally generated 1000s, maybe 10s of 1000s of BTC addresses.

They were used as single burners, long term wallets, receiving addresses for things we sold here on the forum.

Is there any easy way to do a scan on a huge amount of addresses (such as a csv upload) to see if the addresses would qualify for any of these fork bonuses.

I was aware of the Clam distribution. Because of the requirements we didn't have that many that ended up receiving CLAMs, but the addresses we made date back to 2014ish mostly, and 2015.

Do these have value?  Do old addresses which were created on the network and broadcast but never used to receive (0 balance) have value?

Just asking out of curiosity... as we have so many.

Thanks for your help!

Strato

[Stratobitz]

What would they use it for?

there are several forks that happen in Bitcoin, people buy old bitcoin address to try their lock to at least redeem the forked coins of the said address.  I do not see any reason except that one.  I also tried it myself, redeeming forked coins like BCH, BTG, Segwit2x .  And  it is worth the effort .

It's worth the effort if they had balance and the seller of the address doesn't know about forks and stuffs, then you get lucky. simply buying an old bitcoin address that didn't had any BTC on it at the time of fork makes it useless. if i remember correctly even for CLAM there was one rule that it must have had a dust balance to be able to claim it.

With CLAMs, (I know because we checked) it had to have (don't remember the exact amount); but a balance greater than X Dust.

So an account that held 0.00002400 was not credited Clams.  I can't remember the figure, but I am sure it's on the Clam OP Thread.

Cheers!

Strato

[PsylockReborn]

Luckily I bumped to this thread cos I really dont know why people buying old bitcoin addresses. Thanks for enlightening me guys!! happy hodling!! have a great day guys!!