This isn't something surprising. Because then it was placed based on the Bitcoin price, and wasn't it popular? We can't complete this with the current situation. The world has changed a lot, so everything is changing. For me, even if I won that bitcoin when it was placed, I may sell it when the price becomes double. I can't imagine holding on till now unless I totally forget about Bitcoin. Maybe after 10 years, some people still can't imagine Bitcoin was $50K and we haven't bought it. Everything will change from time to time.
That's right, most of us upon receiving that consolation prize might not keep it and just sell it as-is because Bitcoin has no place before in everyone's pocket and it's still new to everyone's ear. Well, for these scenarios, what we can learn is about the value of Bitcoin that has been treated as a consolation prize now has grown a lot.
I am pretty sure most of those coins are lost. If you search the block explorer for that day and you find an address which sent 25 BTC to the 4 participants you will see that they were never spent.
They probably just delete the email or threw away that piece of paper with the private key and it’s gone forever. Bitcoin was like less than $1 back then and not worth it setting up a wallet, finding an exchange to sell just to get $20.
A sad twist for this piece of history then. Those winners don't even keep a few bucks from having it after winning as a consolation prize. But on the brighter side, they've just donated this to the community as it's considered burned and lost Bitcoins forever.
I've been looking for this thread as I've seen someone posted that in socials and he's right with what he's said. I can't imagine how much enthusiasm that this guy has. Because before when you talk like this in front of people, you'll be just laughed by them not knowing what you're saying and even asks you what you're talking about. He's even talking about 10 bitcoins and $10k at that time. While even having less than 10 right now is a wealth that one can keep and have a life changing transformation in our lives.
Things like this from tomhudson on slashdot:
"... except I didn't have to even read that to figure out the system was insecure. The description from Wikipedia was sufficient. In other words, if someone who is not familiar with the system can spot the main flaw in 2 minutes or less, then it's garbage. ...
Summary: Bitcoin is worthless."
AC: "So it's slashvertising AND garbage. Three cheers for kdawson"
"The first thing the client did was try to connect to a webserver on port 80, probably a version check. The second thing it did was try to connect to a an IRC network. Can you say, botnet?"
"I see no reason this would be preferable to any number of already-available systems for valuing goods (like, say, US dollars), unless you're an anti-government paranoid."
I bet that these people have been ROFcrying and still regretting that they've talked sh*t about Bitcoin and never even got a handful of it.
That's the best prize in that tournament if they only knew back then, if they only managed to save those bitcoins until now, surely they have been living a decent life nowadays with that money and those who won the 1st to 4th places wish that they had been the ones who won the last places. It's really good if they can find someone who took part in the tournament and won those 25 bitcoins, I wonder how they are now and how they spend those bitcoins after they finally convert them to fiat. Just like the Pizza guy who accepted to be interviewed these guys right here also deserve such exposure and documentaries if they also want to.
It's likely that they have never kept them and that's sad on their part. That only shows on how Bitcoin was treated as if it's nothing even if it's given to them as a consolation prize.
These were gamers we're talking about. If they see the price of each bitcoin go up even by a dollar or ten dollars, they'd immediately sell those for equipment or gears in game. The chances of them still having those bitcoins are pretty slim, and if ever they still have them, they'd probably be famous by now since they are millionaires.
If I was one of those people in that tournament, I wouldn't believe it if I find out that me losing a tournament would have made me a millionaire.
I'll even use it to buy a new game or some items that will make me happy and that's for sure. But past is past, the lesson is there and I don't think we'll ever see another tournament that will give Bitcoin as its prize whether it's a major or consolation.
Makes me think of the mini tournaments held as well these days with crypto as prizes, most of them for their own utility coins that have little to no outside purpose besides their network, much like what bitcoin is back then. Will they flourish? Will some of the winners keep their coins only to lose their seed phrases/passwords? Will they spend it and eventually be remorseful when they find out they could've cashed out, saved, and sat on a million dollar paycheck in the future? Ahh, it makes me all excited and giddy about the future of Esports and cryptocurrency.
It's much like that these are cypher punk things and those winners will have to figure out how they're going to keep or sell them. But then, no one cares, no one even moved them as said.
