Bitcoin from 2009

[mendace]

Sorry but if you know you bought them from a forum user somehow you should have an account that is not this current forum member.  Try to recover the account and you will find your old posts.

OP said, he bought bitcoin from a forum post but was not sure which forum, he didn't say bitcointalk forum.  from what he said, I don't see any small chance of getting his bitcoins back.  even if he finds the person who sold it to him, what will he do next? unable to recall the entire seed phrase after all these years, the human brain cannot do this.

But he says he bought bitcoins from a link in the forum (and I thought he was registered, maybe he was browsing as a guest...?) but he doesn't say he has to recover the seed but that he has to trace the transaction... which I don't know for what it could be useful but that's the request.

[ImThour]

It is impossible, to be honest, theres a guy who spent millions to find his hard drive, and in 5-6 years he eventually got it just to find out the Bitcoin in it was worth $400k or something.
It's a waste of time, money, and effort. Best is to work hard and get a job or start a business and then DCA into Bitcoin. Good Luck.

[Wildwest]

A search that really hopes to get back the Bitcoin you once sold, because in 2009 the value of Bitcoin was still very low and only a few people owned Bitcoin and stored until now, even at that time they were willing to exchange Bitcoin for food that was very cheap, and at this time regret must occur and will be difficult to forget, And I'm not sure you will easily find Bitcoin sales in those days because very few owned Bitcoin at that time because there was nothing fantastic for us to follow in Bitcoin so many ignored about Bitcoin.

[Ludmilla_rose1995]

Hello all, I am trying to track a bitcoin purchase I made in 2009, I no longer have the pc I used, I wrote the details on some paper and stored it but we've moved house a few times and it might have gone missing,  I have looked on every hard drive, flash drive, cd, dvd etc but to no avail so far.
I bought it off a forum post but I can't remember which forum. Did anyone sell bitcoin in 2009 and if so which forums did you use, I am trying to retrace my steps in the hope it jogs my memory,  I've only been looking for the last 2 years 🤣 so I don't mind looking for another 2 years.
Cheers

i know you are kidding now. But if what you say is true, it seems that it will not be possible to trace those bitcoins, not even for the next 10 or 50 years, you will not be able to track them if only that information is all you have.

[ringgo96]

I think this will be difficult for you to find because in 2009 only a few people already knew Bitcoin and learned about Bitcoin, so the sales that you had done at that time were difficult to track especially some of the old flatfrom was not working so transactions at that time were difficult for us to find, but you still look for information on cryoto users Maybe one of them has indeed sold Bitcoin like you did, Hopefully what you want can be achieved.

[hZti]

Well this forum could be the right place where you bought this coins, but actually it was hosted at the bitcoin.org website in 2009 and everything that was written there was archived and is not visible. To me this story sounds not very promising, since you do not remember any details about your purchase. Those would include especially:

- Username
- Amount
- Date
- Place where you bought them

BIt even if you know all of them above you will not be able to gain access to the coins. What you are looking for is a wallet.dat file, that was used in those times. There were not informations that could be written on a paper, except if you were using a singe adress to store them. Usually wallets had a wallet.dat file to put it on a flash drive.

[decodx]

<...>
even if he finds the person who sold it to him, what will he do next? unable to recall the entire seed phrase after all these years, the human brain cannot do this.

Hmm, I'm not entirely sure if seed phrases were even around back then. I'm not sure when the first HD wallet was introduced, but as far as I know they weren't around in 2009.

[salad daging]

I'm not asking if someone on here sold me the coins,  I'm just trying to retrace my steps, there wasn't any exchanges in 2009 they was sold peer to peer, so I'm not being childish just trying to jog my memory

Who knows while your account was created a few days ago so it will be difficult to find old traces but you are starting with a new account, but I don't know whether this story is true or not because it's been too long.

If you feel that you have bought bitcoin p2p on this forum, then remember the old account and there you will know who transacted with and where to store bitcoin, in case you have a strong memory for the past.

[darkangel11]

🤣🤣 I know that lad, I'll get there in the end, I only spent 50 quid so not that bad but its doing my head in 🤣🤣

You're talking like it's not much of a loss, but 50 pounds, but the average price at that time was something like 0.2 per coin, so that would give you around 250 BTC, making you a millionaire. Worst case scenario, you overpaid and got 100 BTC, which still makes you a millionaire.

I'll be honest here, you don't know which forum you used, who you bought it from, what accounts you had, password or email associated with the forum account...
You don't have the wallet, you don't have the private key, no password for the wallet, no .dat file... Ask any detective or a forensic guy and they'll tell you that you need at least a starting point, something to work with. You've got nothing.

Good luck, you're gonna need it

[S A KHAIR]

OP seems to regret the bitcoins he bought in 2009. But with searching like this being hopeless, you won't stand a chance of finding your bitcoins. Instead, why not take the time to accumulate bitcoin now? I think what you are doing is just a waste of time.

[Plinxer]

Thanks everyone, I know it's a dead loss, there's too many things against me, the email address I had was from an Internet provider but I changed in 2011 and set up a hotmail address, the provider only keeps emails on their servers for 6 months after end of contract, also this would've been the email registered on any forums.
The bank I used to make the payment has been dormant for 10 years and records only go back 7, so can't track the transaction.
The pc has gone but I made back ups which I am forever trawling through.
The purchase was made before September 2009 because I had an office in our small bedroom which we made into a nursery for my daughter born late September and I got rid of the pc and got a laptop.
I bought bitcoin on a whim, I was forever looking for opportunities online, bitcoin was pretty worthless back then so it was easy to forget about it.
The forum was an old style black background with red and green font, I know if I find the forum and post that it won't get me my investment but it might just spark a memory as to how I recorded it, I would've hid this from my wife so it's probably in a file within a file within a file with an obscure name if you know what I mean.
We've moved house a few times over the years and had a clear out everytime which doesn't help.
I'm gonna keep looking and hoping.
All the best everyone

OP seems to regret the bitcoins he bought in 2009. But with searching like this being hopeless, you won't stand a chance of finding your bitcoins. Instead, why not take the time to accumulate bitcoin now? I think what you are doing is just a waste of time.

I have been very active for the past few years but in defi crypto, made 15k profits last year from 1k investment, buying new tokens at launch and selling a few days or weeks layer (sometimes just a few hours later).
I don't see bitcoin as a good investment today,  even if it goes back to its ath its only 3x, there's more to be made in defi but the risks are higher, looking forward to the end of this bear market ready for the next bullrun

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[aylabadia05]

Hello all, I am trying to track a bitcoin purchase I made in 2009, I no longer have the pc I used, I wrote the details on some paper and stored it but we've moved house a few times and it might have gone missing,  I have looked on every hard drive, flash drive, cd, dvd etc but to no avail so far.
I bought it off a forum post but I can't remember which forum. Did anyone sell bitcoin in 2009 and if so which forums did you use, I am trying to retrace my steps in the hope it jogs my memory,  I've only been looking for the last 2 years 🤣 so I don't mind looking for another 2 years.
Cheers

Everything's gone. The copy that you wrote on the paper is lost because you have moved house several times, other storage such as hard drives, flash drives, cds, dvds are also lost.
You want us to help you remember where your lost savings are.
Try looking behind the old computer that you used at that time by opening it with a screwdriver. Maybe you keep it in the back of the computer case. Nice rumors guys.

I'm here 2017, maybe never know Bitcoin 2009.
What I know right now is that keeping Bitcoin on an exchange can make the coins disappear because the coins are theirs even though we bought them using our own money.
Keep coins in recommended wallets, so you can still retrieve your Bitcoin even if you bought it in 2009 by re-entering the key, seed phrase.

[mirakal]

🤣🤣 I know that lad, I'll get there in the end, I only spent 50 quid so not that bad but its doing my head in 🤣🤣

Of course it's making you crazy if that were even true because I don't think you are actually holding that early, I mean 2009? And you just started finding your keys just two years ago after moving across few houses in the past 12 years. More than 1 decade have passed OP and even if let's say that you're assumptions were legit, I honestly doubt that you can still find it.

I've only been looking for the last 2 years 🤣 so I don't mind looking for another 2 years.

Best of luck OP, hopefully that won't turn into two centuries Cheers mate!

[Flexystar]

That would be impossible task. You should have kept them secured on multiple mediums. Since you are talking nearby 2009, CD, HDD and paper would have done the job for you.

Anyways you are not alone who lost the track of bitcoins back in 2009 or years later, there hundreds of them who did mined, bought, traded bitcoin back then and they regretted that they lost all of them. In reality we lost many millionaires to be along the way.

We have already known the craziest way people lost their bitcoin. The famous of them is James Howell, who used to mine the Bitcoin on his computer in 2009. Broke the computer so he kept the HDD with him but few years later he accidently thrown away that HDD in waste bin. He lost around 7500 bitcoins!

Read this article, its old but you will understand how far people have gone in the search of their Lost Bitcoins.

1. One person has been trying to search a toxic landfill
James Howell, an IT worker in the United Kingdom, began mining bitcoin on his personal laptop in 2009. The Telegraph reports that his computer broke in 2013 but he kept the hard drive in case bitcoin became valuable one day. It did.

While cleaning his home that year, he mistakenly put the drive into a waste bin at his local landfill site in Newport, South Wales, where it got buried.

Now, with bitcoin’s value hovering just above $15,000, Howell’s 7,500 lost bitcoins are worth more than $117 million (as of Thursday afternoon).

The U.K. resident wants to try searching the landfill, which reportedly has 350,000 tons of waste, but the Newport City Council won’t allow it.

According to tech website Wired, the landfill is not open to the public and trespassing would be considered a criminal offense.

And even if the drive were recovered, it likely would no longer work after being exposed to heavy and potentially toxic waste for so long.

2. Investors are undergoing hypnotherapy
Many early Bitcoin investors are in a painful predicament. They can’t remember the complex security codes they originally created to gain access to their Bitcoin wallet. Plus, there’s no way to reset the password if you forget, reports Fortune and The Wall Street Journal.

But there’s hope on the horizon. South Carolina hypnotist James Miller has recently begun helping people recall forgotten passwords and find misplaced storage devices.

“I’ve developed a collection of techniques,” he tells the newspaper, “that allow people to access older memories or see things they’ve put away in a stashed spot.”

Miller charges one bitcoin plus 5 percent of the amount recovered for his services, although he says his rates are flexible.

3. Man hacks his Bitcoin vault
Former Wired editor Mark Frauenfelder wrote his password on an orange piece of paper in January 2017. In March, he and his wife jetted off to Tokyo for vacation. A month after returning from vacation, he noticed his orange slip was nowhere to be found. The house cleaner he hired while on vacation had apparently thrown away the piece of paper.

Unperturbed, he typed in the password from memory and received this message: Wrong PIN entered.

After three more fruitless tries, a countdown timer appeared on the screen, which made him wait a few seconds before he could try another PIN.

However, the delay doubled every time the wrong PIN was entered. From April to August, Frauenfelder tried hacking into his vault, to no avail.

One day, he received an email from the vault’s manufacturer explaining that the security was being updated. Per the email, there was a security vulnerability within the vault system that needed fixing. Frauenfelder reached out to a bitcoin expert who put him in contact with a 15-year-old coding whiz who could give him video instructions on how to exploit the vulnerability and hack the vault.

After agreeing to pay the teenager the equivalent of $3,700 in bitcoin, he received instructions that would hack his computer and show him the password.

“Following Saleem’s instructions, I copied a string of text,” he writes for Wired. “The PIN appeared instantly. Months of soul-crushing anxiety fell away like big clods of mud that had been clinging to my shoulders.”

[Webetcoins]

Hello all, I am trying to track a bitcoin purchase I made in 2009, I no longer have the pc I used, I wrote the details on some paper and stored it but we've moved house a few times and it might have gone missing,  I have looked on every hard drive, flash drive, cd, dvd etc but to no avail so far.
I bought it off a forum post but I can't remember which forum. Did anyone sell bitcoin in 2009 and if so which forums did you use, I am trying to retrace my steps in the hope it jogs my memory,  I've only been looking for the last 2 years 🤣 so I don't mind looking for another 2 years.
Cheers

Sarcastic  i am also looking for the Lamborghini i parked in the Dezard twenty years ago, i have last compass and i am looking for whoever picked a Lambo in the desert before in their entire life, i am ready to search for infinity.

Ops not your keys, not your Bitcoin, if you can't find your private keys, you no longer own the wallet.

Even if he is being sarcastic, that is not what he is implying with this. He is asking for the person who sold him the Bitcoins so that he can trace back his steps which might lead him to something, and the seller will obviously not give him his private key to the wallet or his Bitcoins back which is what you are taking this towards I think.

To OP, if you've lost track, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to find the buyer and even if you do, if you've lost the paper that had the details of your wallet, you have already lost your Bitcoins and there is no way you can recover them unless you have the details saved somewhere else as well and you reach that place somehow.

[Plinxer]

Hello all, I am trying to track a bitcoin purchase I made in 2009, I no longer have the pc I used, I wrote the details on some paper and stored it but we've moved house a few times and it might have gone missing,  I have looked on every hard drive, flash drive, cd, dvd etc but to no avail so far.
I bought it off a forum post but I can't remember which forum. Did anyone sell bitcoin in 2009 and if so which forums did you use, I am trying to retrace my steps in the hope it jogs my memory,  I've only been looking for the last 2 years 🤣 so I don't mind looking for another 2 years.
Cheers

Sarcastic  i am also looking for the Lamborghini i parked in the Dezard twenty years ago, i have last compass and i am looking for whoever picked a Lambo in the desert before in their entire life, i am ready to search for infinity.

Ops not your keys, not your Bitcoin, if you can't find your private keys, you no longer own the wallet.

Even if he is being sarcastic, that is not what he is implying with this. He is asking for the person who sold him the Bitcoins so that he can trace back his steps which might lead him to something, and the seller will obviously not give him his private key to the wallet or his Bitcoins back which is what you are taking this towards I think.

To OP, if you've lost track, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to find the buyer and even if you do, if you've lost the paper that had the details of your wallet, you have already lost your Bitcoins and there is no way you can recover them unless you have the details saved somewhere else as well and you reach that place somehow.

Hello all, I am trying to track a bitcoin purchase I made in 2009, I no longer have the pc I used, I wrote the details on some paper and stored it but we've moved house a few times and it might have gone missing,  I have looked on every hard drive, flash drive, cd, dvd etc but to no avail so far.
I bought it off a forum post but I can't remember which forum. Did anyone sell bitcoin in 2009 and if so which forums did you use, I am trying to retrace my steps in the hope it jogs my memory,  I've only been looking for the last 2 years 🤣 so I don't mind looking for another 2 years.
Cheers

Sarcastic  i am also looking for the Lamborghini i parked in the Dezard twenty years ago, i have last compass and i am looking for whoever picked a Lambo in the desert before in their entire life, i am ready to search for infinity.

Ops not your keys, not your Bitcoin, if you can't find your private keys, you no longer own the wallet.

Even if he is being sarcastic, that is not what he is implying with this. He is asking for the person who sold him the Bitcoins so that he can trace back his steps which might lead him to something, and the seller will obviously not give him his private key to the wallet or his Bitcoins back which is what you are taking this towards I think.

To OP, if you've lost track, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to find the buyer and even if you do, if you've lost the paper that had the details of your wallet, you have already lost your Bitcoins and there is no way you can recover them unless you have the details saved somewhere else as well and you reach that place somehow.

I'm not trying to track the person, that would be impossible,  I'm trying to just retrace my steps, maybe I saved it under and obscure filename relating to where I found the seller, anyway its not looking good but I'll keep looking.
I saw a post on a forum, I think it was 1000 bitcoin for $100, I set up the wallet, paid the seller via either bank transfer or PayPal,  received the coins, saved the info and hid it (but maybe a little too well🤣).

[nara1892]

I want to try to think positively in this case even though I'm a little doubtful. because if that's true, you're one of the many people who were here from the beginning which of course it's been a while.
But on the other hand I also agree with some of the people mentioned here. If you lose the key, it will be lost forever, nothing will change from that, so it doesn't matter how you look for it or on any forum, as long as you don't have your key, it will never be recovered and all you have to do is be sincere.

[Plinxer]

I want to try to think positively in this case even though I'm a little doubtful. because if that's true, you're one of the many people who were here from the beginning which of course it's been a while.
But on the other hand I also agree with some of the people mentioned here. If you lose the key, it will be lost forever, nothing will change from that, so it doesn't matter how you look for it or on any forum, as long as you don't have your key, it will never be recovered and all you have to do is be sincere.

I want to try to think positively in this case even though I'm a little doubtful. because if that's true, you're one of the many people who were here from the beginning which of course it's been a while.
But on the other hand I also agree with some of the people mentioned here. If you lose the key, it will be lost forever, nothing will change from that, so it doesn't matter how you look for it or on any forum, as long as you don't have your key, it will never be recovered and all you have to do is be sincere.

Cheers,  I'll find it, I'm not gonna stop till I do 👍👍

[KingsDen]

Hello all, I am trying to track a bitcoin purchase I made in 2009, I no longer have the pc I used, I wrote the details on some paper and stored it but we've moved house a few times and it might have gone missing,  I have looked on every hard drive, flash drive, cd, dvd etc but to no avail so far.
I bought it off a forum post but I can't remember which forum. Did anyone sell bitcoin in 2009 and if so which forums did you use, I am trying to retrace my steps in the hope it jogs my memory,  I've only been looking for the last 2 years 🤣 so I don't mind looking for another 2 years.
Cheers

Let's say you found the forum and possibly finds the person that sold the bitcoin to you, that will not be enough to trace your bitcoin. There was no exchange then, so you didn't buy from an exchange.
You were in charge of your bitcoin and you saved everything yourself.
Just go check pictures you took 2009 and understand the kind of electronic gadgets you had then. This could give you a clue. Am I able to help?

[Bitcoin_people]

Hello all, I am trying to track a bitcoin purchase I made in 2009, I no longer have the pc I used, I wrote the details on some paper and stored it but we've moved house a few times and it might have gone missing,  I have looked on every hard drive, flash drive, cd, dvd etc but to no avail so far.
I bought it off a forum post but I can't remember which forum. Did anyone sell bitcoin in 2009 and if so which forums did you use, I am trying to retrace my steps in the hope it jogs my memory,  I've only been looking for the last 2 years 🤣 so I don't mind looking for another 2 years.
Cheers

When you bought Bitcoin in 2009 you should have collected important papers and kept them. But in 2009 the value of Bitcoin was not so much that you did not take care of it and lost the important papers where you left them. but since you said you have moved your house from one place to another several times, I think you might not be able to find your important papers. If you don't look for your lost papers but search which forum you bought them from you might find them. Your complete steps will definitely require you to work harder so you can rest assured that you can always find success.