I'm back into Bitcoin!

[Ararbermas]

Hello everyone, I recently did a cleanup on my external hard drive and I found a wallet.dat file.

At first I didn't have any idea of what this was, so I went ahead and deleted the file and continued my cleanup. I was still pretty intrigued by the filename, "wallet" so I looked up the exact name of the file: 'wallet.dat'. The first search result was this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Wallet. I read that it's basically a file containing all of the important information related to a Bitcoin wallet. I also read that this file is normally located in the Bitcoin Core wallet directory, so I went ahead and installed the latest version of Bitcoin Core and looked in my trash bin folder, and sure enough, the wallet.dat file was in there. I had to wait 2 days or so for it to sync to the blockchain. Unfortuantely, I knew did not mine any BTC back then, I could only remember visiting a faucet a few times.

Today I woke up to this: 2.49 BTC sitting in the balance field. Man, I knew Bitcoin wasn't worth 20$ anymore! Let me tell you, this made my day, probably, my week or even this entire year!

Is there anything I need to do now that I'm holding a pretty big amount of Bitcoin? I've read that hardware wallets are the safest, should I buy one? Is there anything I need to know?

that's a big surprise for you mate and congrats you still recovered it, anywaysi suggest to just stay where you stored you bitcoin as long it's safe and very secured wherein you know there's no problem with it.. Just make backup instead incase of what happen again next because you know that amount is too big mate, just imagine 2.49btc so its a big mistake if you loss it again without any backup how to recover it.. So make it your priority for now..

[1714931980]

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[michellee]

Today I woke up to this: 2.49 BTC sitting in the balance field. Man, I knew Bitcoin wasn't worth 20$ anymore! Let me tell you, this made my day, probably, my week or even this entire year!

Is there anything I need to do now that I'm holding a pretty big amount of Bitcoin? I've read that hardware wallets are the safest, should I buy one? Is there anything I need to know?

Congratulations to you. You found a treasure inside your HardDisk. What you need to do right now is calm down and enjoy your time to see your 2.49 BTC. You do not need to buy a hardware wallet if you are sure your computer is safe from any malware or virus.

Then you can use 0.49 BTC to withdraw the money for your daily life or learning about trading to increase the amount because 0.49 BTC now is a lot of money.

Do not tell others you have BTC because that can lead them to be curious and will search for more. It is better to keep it silent and only you know the secret.

Do not attract to invest in any coins if you do not search for more info because the crypto market already increases so maybe you can invest in the next year while you can enjoy your money by withdrawing to your bank account. My suggestion is not to withdraw all of the money at once by doing it separately so that will not your banks suspicious.

[buwaytress]

Welcome back and all that!
 
Here's a tip: don't tell anyone what you got, guard that private key with your life (however you decide to do that later with a hardware wallet).
 
Oh and, you never really leave Bitcoin. Not until you chuck the keys out or sell everything. It's one heck of a thing to ever get into, you never really are the same after;)

[OgNasty]

Hello everyone, I recently did a cleanup on my external hard drive and I found a wallet.dat file.

At first I didn't have any idea of what this was, so I went ahead and deleted the file and continued my cleanup. I was still pretty intrigued by the filename, "wallet" so I looked up the exact name of the file: 'wallet.dat'. The first search result was this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Wallet. I read that it's basically a file containing all of the important information related to a Bitcoin wallet. I also read that this file is normally located in the Bitcoin Core wallet directory, so I went ahead and installed the latest version of Bitcoin Core and looked in my trash bin folder, and sure enough, the wallet.dat file was in there. I had to wait 2 days or so for it to sync to the blockchain. Unfortuantely, I knew did not mine any BTC back then, I could only remember visiting a faucet a few times.

Today I woke up to this: 2.49 BTC sitting in the balance field. Man, I knew Bitcoin wasn't worth 20$ anymore! Let me tell you, this made my day, probably, my week or even this entire year!

Is there anything I need to do now that I'm holding a pretty big amount of Bitcoin? I've read that hardware wallets are the safest, should I buy one? Is there anything I need to know?

Congratulations.  It's hard to believe stories like this when you read them on the internet, but I'm sure there's plenty of Bitcoin left on old hard drives all over the place.  I think this phenomenon is definitely partly responsible for the massive increase in market cap over the years.  I think the real market cap of Bitcoin is most likely quite a bit lower than what is stated, and more than other coins due to the fact that many of the early adopters of Bitcoin left long before altcoins were a thing and it looked like Bitcoin would be here to stay.

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

You should buy one but be careful not to get a tampered one because you're going to lose all those bitcoin when you use those tampered HW. Remember to be careful with your bitcoins now that it's considerably a lot of money. Congratulations that you were able to still get those bitcoins because from my experience, those that have them for a long time have forgotten the password to access those stuff.

[davis196]

So basically you were an early Bitcoin user,but you don't know what a wallet.dat file is?This is weird.
It must have been crazy to earn 2.5 BTC just by using Bitcoin faucets back in 2010-2011.
You didn't tell the story about how did you get interested in Bitcoin 10 years ago.
Congratulations on your discovery.This is like winning the lottery,but be careful with how are you spending those BTC.
If I remember this correctly,the saying was "Easy come,easy go."
Money that are earned very easy usually get spent pretty easily.

[Lucius]

Today I woke up to this: 2.49 BTC sitting in the balance field. Man, I knew Bitcoin wasn't worth 20$ anymore! Let me tell you, this made my day, probably, my week or even this entire year!

Welcome back after 10 years, it is really rare to see such old profiles activated after such a long time. Congratulations also on finding the hidden treasure, and that unlike some people you did look at what is on the HDD before you format it or throw it in the trash - it pays to be precise and thorough in life.

In your place, I would consider buying a hardware wallet or in case you have an old computer to make an airgapped wallet, which is a bit more complicated, but even safer than a hardware wallet.

If you are saying that you received those bitcoins through faucet activity, then you must have been in Bitcoin back in 2010 to 2014 or somewhere around then, with the Gavin Andressen faucet.   

Probably, but not exclusively in that period - because between 2015 and 2017 I managed to collect a significant amount through faucets and thus earned my first BTC - and during 2015 in just one hour with a good faucet rotator it could be collected in a very easy way and more than 100 000 satoshis. The GA faucet gave 5 BTC per claim, I just don’t know how long it lasted - so OP was certainly not one of those lucky ones to get BTC that way.

[ChiBitCTy]

Damn, you must be a computer nerd and mined back in the day or something huh? Lucky mofo! That would certainly make more than my day lol.  That would certainly make my year and then some.  If you do move it to a hardware wallet I would not suggest Ledger like others have here.  Trezor and ColdCards are considered by most to be the two best hardware wallets out there.  I have a Trezor T and love it. 

[pawanjain]

Damn, that's amazing. I wish I could wake up with 2.49 BTC as well    Unfortunately I didn't know about bitcoin back then.
It's good that you did not permanently deleted the wallet.dat file and were able to recover the bitcoins successfully.
As others have already mentioned the best thing to do would be to transfer those bitcoins to a hardware wallet but make sure you buy it from the official platforms only.
Check the website multiple times before placing an order for the hardware wallet and do reset the keys upon using your new hardware wallet.
Also, keep a backup of the keys by noting it down on a paper or something and store in a secure place.
Good luck with those precious bitcoins and use them wisely.

[DarkDays]

Today I woke up to this: 2.49 BTC sitting in the balance field. Man, I knew Bitcoin wasn't worth 20$ anymore! Let me tell you, this made my day, probably, my week or even this entire year!

Is there anything I need to do now that I'm holding a pretty big amount of Bitcoin? I've read that hardware wallets are the safest, should I buy one? Is there anything I need to know?

What a lucky find this was for you!!!! Now that you have BTC, yes you do need to think about securing it and you've got 2 options either use your BTC to earn interest on it which comes at the risk of you leaving your coins on an exchange or get a hardware wallet and keep them there (much safer) but you don't earn anything. The call is yours but for sure do your research before deciding..

[AakZaki]

Is this really a real story?
please provide some screenshots so we can know about your recovering wallet.dat.
It will be very lucky if you open a past wallet and find 2.49 Bitcoins. you will have a lot of money if you sell it now or wait for ATH to form again.

[DeathAngel]

Congrats OP & good for you, I’m happy you were able to recover some bitcoin. You should look to HODL at least 50% of that for future halving cycles. Don’t sell all of it this year.

[adzino]

Hello everyone, I recently did a cleanup on my external hard drive and I found a wallet.dat file.

At first I didn't have any idea of what this was, so I went ahead and deleted the file and continued my cleanup. I was still pretty intrigued by the filename, "wallet" so I looked up the exact name of the file: 'wallet.dat'. The first search result was this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Wallet. I read that it's basically a file containing all of the important information related to a Bitcoin wallet. I also read that this file is normally located in the Bitcoin Core wallet directory, so I went ahead and installed the latest version of Bitcoin Core and looked in my trash bin folder, and sure enough, the wallet.dat file was in there. I had to wait 2 days or so for it to sync to the blockchain. Unfortuantely, I knew did not mine any BTC back then, I could only remember visiting a faucet a few times.

Today I woke up to this: 2.49 BTC sitting in the balance field. Man, I knew Bitcoin wasn't worth 20$ anymore! Let me tell you, this made my day, probably, my week or even this entire year!

Is there anything I need to do now that I'm holding a pretty big amount of Bitcoin? I've read that hardware wallets are the safest, should I buy one? Is there anything I need to know?

That's nice to know that you are back into bitcoin. Lucky you didn't permanently delete those files, or else it would have been such a trouble to recover those deleted files (or worse, you would have never know what was in that wallet!). Now the first thing to do is to move the coins to a more secure wallet. Like you said, hardware wallets are the best. If you are planning on holding it for long term, then cold wallets are the best. So go ahead, buy on those hardware wallets. Its not very expensive. And maybe you would like to convert a little portion of your bitcoin into some other altcoins for better gains (risks are involved).

[zanezane]

You're lucky that you're still able to open the wallet and recover the bitcoin's that you have, I wish I had that kind of amount but no I don't and I hope that you're able to make a good use of those bitcoins because 2 bitcoins can easily turn your life around.

[Jaycee99]

Hello everyone, I recently did a cleanup on my external hard drive and I found a wallet.dat file.

At first I didn't have any idea of what this was, so I went ahead and deleted the file and continued my cleanup. I was still pretty intrigued by the filename, "wallet" so I looked up the exact name of the file: 'wallet.dat'. The first search result was this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Wallet. I read that it's basically a file containing all of the important information related to a Bitcoin wallet. I also read that this file is normally located in the Bitcoin Core wallet directory, so I went ahead and installed the latest version of Bitcoin Core and looked in my trash bin folder, and sure enough, the wallet.dat file was in there. I had to wait 2 days or so for it to sync to the blockchain. Unfortuantely, I knew did not mine any BTC back then, I could only remember visiting a faucet a few times.

Today I woke up to this: 2.49 BTC sitting in the balance field. Man, I knew Bitcoin wasn't worth 20$ anymore! Let me tell you, this made my day, probably, my week or even this entire year!

Is there anything I need to do now that I'm holding a pretty big amount of Bitcoin? I've read that hardware wallets are the safest, should I buy one? Is there anything I need to know?

I would suggest if are a trader and can predict wait for it to go 50 and withdraw it later but for me, as an amateur trader it's risky, from my point of view it already hit 50$ USD it might be just playing on 45k to 49k USD but who knows there might be a rich guy out there playing with bitcoin again.

The other suggestion is to withdraw it now because you already got the return of investment and you can later invest it in bitcoin again if it goes down like 30k USD.  

After reading my suggestion go study trading and bitcoin learn, so you can fully decide what to do which is the best thing to do for your situation

[rodskee]

Hello everyone, I recently did a cleanup on my external hard drive and I found a wallet.dat file.

At first I didn't have any idea of what this was, so I went ahead and deleted the file and continued my cleanup. I was still pretty intrigued by the filename, "wallet" so I looked up the exact name of the file: 'wallet.dat'. The first search result was this: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Wallet. I read that it's basically a file containing all of the important information related to a Bitcoin wallet. I also read that this file is normally located in the Bitcoin Core wallet directory, so I went ahead and installed the latest version of Bitcoin Core and looked in my trash bin folder, and sure enough, the wallet.dat file was in there. I had to wait 2 days or so for it to sync to the blockchain. Unfortuantely, I knew did not mine any BTC back then, I could only remember visiting a faucet a few times.

Today I woke up to this: 2.49 BTC sitting in the balance field. Man, I knew Bitcoin wasn't worth 20$ anymore! Let me tell you, this made my day, probably, my week or even this entire year!

Is there anything I need to do now that I'm holding a pretty big amount of Bitcoin? I've read that hardware wallets are the safest, should I buy one? Is there anything I need to know?

congratulation mate for your bitcoin recovery that is a really good digging as you have already forgot about that funds for long?
and accidentally finding the amount for good is indeed a lucky day for you.

You're lucky that you're still able to open the wallet and recover the bitcoin's that you have, I wish I had that kind of amount but no I don't and I hope that you're able to make a good use of those bitcoins because 2 bitcoins can easily turn your life around.

actually he had no idea at all not until ge go through the files , and he has no idea at first about that wallet if you will check his whole post.

[kenskie]

Congratulations, lucky! it is like waking up to be rich  . Better save BTCBTC to my hard drive too.  If you are still interested in cryptocurrencies I would suggest to invest in some promising ICO's and you should also become a trader, but need to learn and study trading world first, that is if you are still interested. Well good luck! 

[worle1bm]

Congrats OP & good for you, I’m happy you were able to recover some bitcoin. You should look to HODL at least 50% of that for future halving cycles. Don’t sell all of it this year.

He has got lucky that he wakes up to having that much bitcoin in his Wallet that have suddenly changed his financial status so he could wait for another 1-2 years to gain evermore because those were eventually lost coins but now he has them back so why not hold them for some more time instead of selling at these dips.Just a friendly advice.

[btcinmylife]

You are very lucky, you have realized the things in my dreams.

[Wong Gendheng]

I often hear stories like this, when people look at the current bitcoin price of course anything he has ever done with bitcoin will be remembered, you are lucky to find more than $120k with a little work, this is a valuable lesson that assets that are currently worthless we have to take care.