What could someone do with the private keys of empty Bitcoin addresses?

[AB de Royse777]

Someone in the Digital goods section is buying private keys of empty Bitcoin address which had balance of over 40 BTC or more. And the requirement to have the first transaction in between 2009-2018. Please check here: Archive

They are paying very handsome amount too.

The recovery price is calculated at 0.25% of the total Bitcoin received.

I asked them the question that what is the business there but seems like they are comfortable to keep it confidential which is completely okay.

This was a response from one user:

Some tend to believe that they can trick others (maybe authorities?) with claims they had Bitcoins in the past but they don't have anymore. I have some hunches, but nothing clear (and I don't want to give better ideas to others too). However, very shady things.

(Also there are the forks, you know..)

And seems like we both have no clue however I am interested to know the possible usability one could have by spending that much money for some private keys which for me (possibly for you too) have no value at all. Can we figure out a possible project from this case?


Cheers,

[1715214384]

1715214384

[1715214384]

1715214384

[LeGaulois]

A long time ago I remember an altcoin giving coins for free, but users needed a fairly old BTC address (something similar, I don't remember exactly, sorry). If you do a search on this forum, you could find some old similar topics because it's how I found the reason. Pretty sure he has the same.

Edit:
Exemple:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2060938.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1157425.0

Edit 2;
@TryNinja
I believe there are several altcoins with it

I'm using the keys to collect an old dead altcoin: LottoShares. LottoShares were fully premined and distributed to funded BTC/LTC/Doge addresses at the time

[TryNinja]

A long time ago I remember an altcoin giving coins for free, but users needed a fairly old BTC address (something similar,). If you do a search on this forum, you could find some old similar topics because it's how I found the reason. Pretty sure he has the same.

I believe you're talking about ClamCoin

WHAT ARE CLAMS?
If you held a balance on May 12th 2014 in a BTC, LTC, or DOGE address then you most likely already have CLAMcoin waiting to be dug up.

Source: https://clamcoin.org/

I remember websites like Freebitcoin were buying addresses years ago to do the same.

[PassThePopcorn]

My thought is it's either to get unclaimed forks or to provide proof of funds / proof of spent funds for tax purposes.

[demure]

About one year ago there was a bitcoin hardfork event (Bitcoin cash). After hardfork balances of old wallets was doubled with new BCH coins. For example, If you had 1 BTC before hardfork then you get 1 BCH for free on same wallet. Not all people heard about hardfork happened. Because of that thousands of old bitcoin wallets were storing Bitcoin and new Bitcoin Cash coins which has cost of a few hundreds dollars each. Some of smart people started buying old and empty bitcoin wallets just to withdraw new bitcoin cash coins from it. So somebody who had say 2 BTC on his wallet and didn’t know about hardfork was withdrawing bitcoins and selling privkey for 30$. Smart men who bought it with knowledge about hardfork was withdrawing 2 BCH from it and selling it for say 700$ on exchange Thats why people should read news about btc instead of just holding.

[timerland]

There are 2 possible ways, I assume for someone to profit off old BTC addresses that are no longer used.

Currently, there are multiple hard forks of Bitcoin, and if you have had 1 BTC from 2015, it's worth a lot more then you actually realize. Let's calculate.

1 BTC is currently - 11,700
1 Bitcoin Cash (which forked 1 August 2017, so if you have an address which had BTC out there, you can redeem it) - $350 currently, if you sold a week from the fork, it would have been 600
1 Bitcoin Gold - $18, would have been 300 if you sold at the fork date (24 October 2017)
1 Bitcoin SV- $160, would have been around 220 at for date (15 November 2018)

If you sold all of BTC forks at their date, you would have made around 1000 USD.  10% of a BTC.

2nd option is some way to lie to the government about owning bitcoin? Some insurance scam maybe?

[pooya87]

i don't think it is for fork coin claiming since people usually empty their keys from all coins not just bitcoin before selling them.
maybe they are trying to sell those keys to other scammers who need them, like a key selling service for scammers! imagine how much money some scammer such as Craig Wright would pay for a key that was used in 2009!

[LTU_btc]

I doubt that they are buying these addresses to claim forks. I remember seing one guy said that he would buy address where all forks already been claimed. I have similar thoughts like NeuroticFish, they probably need these addresses to do some tricks with taxes, but I don't know how exactly it would work. Probably it can also be used in some smart scam scheme.

[demure]

Now its impossible to earn money that way, since everyone knows about forks happened. And as I see some people even don’t believe in my story. But once first hardfork happened not all people knew about it. I also bought a few old and “empty” wallets in 2018 and earned a few k$ by withdrawing BCH from it.

Keep in mind also that during first few months after hardfork there weren’t even exchanges for BCH/USD pair. So most of people ignored that opportunity to earn.

[DarkDays]

The thing is, I've actually seen people buying these old addresses, even when they don't contain any significant forked coins.

There must be some other use for them that we're not aware of, perhaps they could be being used for some sort of blockchain re-org.

[stomachgrowls]

i don't think it is for fork coin claiming since people usually empty their keys from all coins not just bitcoin before selling them.
maybe they are trying to sell those keys to other scammers who need them, like a key selling service for scammers! imagine how much money some scammer such as Craig Wright would pay for a key that was used in 2009!

Same thoughts where that fork claiming should be crossed out on the options yet majority will be aware of that fork thing.Its impossible for someone who
would carelessly sell it without minding on the fork thing.

I see these threads also on services section where someone do buy out empty addresses with PK.The thing on my mind is that they might be using these addresses
for tax reasons.I dont know 

[legendster]

Taxes
Fraud (previous proof of owning shit loads of btc) (multiple variations of fraud)
Forks (Unlikely)

And quite possibly 51% attacking some small yet significant BTC fork and doing a rollback to get those coins. This is quite possible since your peeps have the money to spend it seems.

[shield132]

Someone in the Digital goods section is buying private keys of empty Bitcoin address which had balance of over 40 BTC or more. And the requirement to have the first transaction in between 2009-2018. Please check here: Archive

They are paying very handsome amount too.

The recovery price is calculated at 0.25% of the total Bitcoin received.

I asked them the question that what is the business there but seems like they are comfortable to keep it confidential which is completely okay.

This was a response from one user:

Some tend to believe that they can trick others (maybe authorities?) with claims they had Bitcoins in the past but they don't have anymore. I have some hunches, but nothing clear (and I don't want to give better ideas to others too). However, very shady things.

(Also there are the forks, you know..)

And seems like we both have no clue however I am interested to know the possible usability one could have by spending that much money for some private keys which for me (possibly for you too) have no value at all. Can we figure out a possible project from this case?


Cheers,

Maybe they use them for airdrops? As far as I remember some airdrops were requiring to own a lot of bitcoins and sign a message from them.
But on another hand, as NeuroticFish says they want to trick others that they were owning bitcoins in past, I think this won't be the reason behind this because if you check any adress on btc.com it shows you if it was mentioned on bitcointalk and in which threads, so I think that ruins that idea.
So I think they don't depend on tricks because they pay really huge amount to risk for tricks.

[dive]

If you end up buying and receiving a Private Key of a particular address that is a Child of a HD Wallet/Master Key, can't you derive the Master Private Key and get all other child?

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/56916/derivation-of-parent-private-key-from-non-hardened-child

[AB de Royse777]

If you end up buying and receiving a Private Key of a particular address that is a Child of a HD Wallet/Master Key, can't you derive the Master Private Key and get all other child?

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/56916/derivation-of-parent-private-key-from-non-hardened-child

I certainly have no idea from the technical aspect but this gives a direction if it is possible.

[BrewMaster]

If you end up buying and receiving a Private Key of a particular address that is a Child of a HD Wallet/Master Key, can't you derive the Master Private Key and get all other child?

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/56916/derivation-of-parent-private-key-from-non-hardened-child

I certainly have no idea from the technical aspect but this gives a direction if it is possible.

usually when people sell their keys, they are only selling their "private keys" not their master keys. even if they do, they will sell their seed or master private key which means their entire wallet should be changed, and if not they have more serious things to worry about.

what is said here will only concern them if they sell two things: their private key and the master public key that this key came from and only if the key was at a non-hardened path.
since there is no reason to sell your master public key alongside your private key i don't think this is the case with those buying keys.

[The Cryptovator]

Bought private key could not use anymore, because it will shared. So most likely they want to gain some fund from previous hard fork as other user already mentioned. Or it might use for scam, perhaps they would get loan from any crypto lender website (not sure if there is any). But I believe somehow that's all address would be use for crime /scams if they do not use it for hard fork.

[royalfestus]

I used to believe hardfork coin are deposited in wallets with coin not empty wallets, am very surprised, the last hardfork of BCH didnt fund my empty bitcoin wallets with previous transactions. There is high possibility of using the wallet transaction history to swindle. Some social media account with long history are also offered for sale, it is believed to have genuine users.

[AB de Royse777]

I used to believe hardfork coin are deposited in wallets with coin not empty wallets

This is not right (current thought) because, you are asking to have the forked coin in all the wallets where the Bitcoins were in it's history plus the current address at the time of the fork :-P

You are still correct in your previous thought.

[buwaytress]

Unlikely use case, but since I've heard of more ridiculous ideas that actually worked...

If I had an address from years ago, and could sign it to prove ownership, I suppose I could fool some people into thinking I was the original owner, and therefore also owner of any identities online linked to the address. That buys me reputation, at the very least? Even some clout if the address used to own 40 BTC. In the eyes of some, anyone who was daring enough to use Bitcoin in those days is probably someone whose opinion counts.