What are the rules for finding wallets

[eye-con]

You can have the wallet since you find it but you can never own the money/coins inside since you don't have the keys that will open it. Therefore, it was useless to find it, you don't have any benefits as you can never use that wallet. If I were you, better make your own wallet to have full access rather than claiming that the found wallet is yours. You can legally claim it was yours when you have the keys that is the way to prove ownership. Otherwise, cour claim id invalid and just a waste of time as we can never get anything that is inside.

OP is discussing about obtaining the private key or seed phrase and suddenly finding Bitcoin inside.

If I miraculously got a private key to a wallet that had Bitcoin in it

To OP, technically speaking, if you found Bitcoin within a wallet to which you have access by obtaining a private key, you can do whatever you please with those funds. However, if you have a conscience and are aware that the funds are not rightfully yours, you would likely choose not to use the wallet and instead turn a blind eye to the funds.

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[2Pizza410000BTC]

Like the title says what are the rules. If I miraculously got a private key to a wallet that had Bitcoin in it but was not mine originally then does that mean I now own the wallet like finders keepers and is there any legality issues with this in the usa,uk,canada,south america. Is this more of a morality should you or should you not.

Since it's a miracle, if you find a wallet and it has bitcoins in it, you're in trouble for that wallet. I want to tell you not to use that wallet. Return the wallet you found and if the rightful owner gets it you will be well served and if you use that wallet it will be stolen and people treated unfairly also I heard the law is the same as UK, USA, Canada and South America If you are very active in the country then you will have problems you may get caught.

[Silberman]

Like the title says what are the rules. If I miraculously got a private key to a wallet that had Bitcoin in it but was not mine originally then does that mean I now own the wallet like finders keepers and is there any legality issues with this in the usa,uk,canada,south america. Is this more of a morality should you or should you not.

There are no preestablished rules for that and you will need to decide what to do on your own, however the chances of that happening are very low, address collision is almost impossible so finding a private key or a series of seed words will need to happen by just finding a piece of paper or an electronic device with that information, which means there could be some ways to determine the origin of those coins, besides if the owner of those coins is smart they should realize they have lost their coins and move them out of that wallet as soon as they can, not giving too much opportunity for this dilemma to actually happen.

[jrrsparkles]

Like the title says what are the rules. If I miraculously got a private key to a wallet that had Bitcoin in it but was not mine originally then does that mean I now own the wallet like finders keepers and is there any legality issues with this in the usa,uk,canada,south america. Is this more of a morality should you or should you not.

Good luck finding such thing cause it's hypothetical to happen unless you broke into someone device digitally or physically and get hold of the seeds or privkeys. But if the wallet obtained via later then it's digital crime and you could face severe penalty along with prison time.

There is no point in answering a question that is likely to never happen.

[snipie]

Apparently many people think that finding a Bitcoin in some random wallet is like digging for a treasure in an abandoned land or something similar.
Regardless of how low the probability for this to happen, there will be two possibilities: the owner is no longer here so there will be no consequences or most likely the owner will report what happened to the police and legal actions will follow.

[Lida93]

Like the title says what are the rules. If I miraculously got a private key to a wallet that had Bitcoin in it but was not mine originally then does that mean I now own the wallet like finders keepers and is there any legality issues with this in the usa,uk,canada,south america. Is this more of a morality should you or should you not.

The chances of this miracle coming to a reality is out of context so I'll address this as a hypothetical concern. On the part of morality wether it's right or wrong all depends on the situation by which you got the seed phrase.

Assuming we all agree it's morally wrong to spend the money in the wallet in that case how do we know who the actual owner of the wallet is. So spending the money in the wallet now becomes morally acceptable even though it isn't yours originally.

On the other hand, if you're so unlucky that it's a wallet that is affiliated with crime related matter and probably the feds are after the original owner then I think in that case you are a scape goat to be roasted for having in possession such criminally connected money. So wake up from your slumber mate and stop anticipating for miracle money   else you might someday miraculously wake up in jail.

[Z390]

I don't know why people don't think very hard before making decisions, OP have you not think about this? What if the Bitcoin wallet you found belong to a big criminal that's on watch? What if the Bitcoin is already flagged and on track? You will have a lot of explanation to do if they mistook you as the real culprit.

Now who is going to believe you that you saw the Bitcoin wallet on the floor or something? You could end up in jail for finding a marked BTC wallet address, I think you need to do research on how exchanges track down hackers by flagging their wallet addresses and monitoring their movements.

Many hackers ended up with BTC that they can't even spend after they stole them, the few smart ones return most of the stolen assets and request to keep a certain amount, because they believe that this is the only way they can let them go and also be able to spend the remaining BTC they have.

[bayu7adi]

I'm sure 99% of people will immediately claim the amount of BTC in their wallet to send to their personal wallet. It's indeed a miracle, when someone finds the private key of a wallet that has a BTC balance and consider yourself lucky to have found it.

Until now there are no special rules that make it a violation, unless you intentionally hack someone else's wallet with bad intentions. Finding treasure is different from stealing treasure, since the anonymity of Bitcoin ownership still applies, I feel you are a lucky person and the victim is an unlucky person at that time.

I hope your conscience is wise enough to decide whether you want to take the money or not.

Please note that there are some wallets that are blacklisted by exchanges, because they may be used suspiciously. So be careful if you don't want the police to suddenly visit you home.

[fuguebtc]

Like the title says what are the rules. If I miraculously got a private key to a wallet that had Bitcoin in it but was not mine originally then does that mean I now own the wallet like finders keepers and is there any legality issues with this in the usa,uk,canada,south america. Is this more of a morality should you or should you not.

Since it's a miracle, if you find a wallet and it has bitcoins in it, you're in trouble for that wallet. I want to tell you not to use that wallet. Return the wallet you found and if the rightful owner gets it you will be well served and if you use that wallet it will be stolen and people treated unfairly also I heard the law is the same as UK, USA, Canada and South America If you are very active in the country then you will have problems you may get caught.

If you accidentally found someone's bitcoin wallet, would you really return it to its owner? Honestly , I'm skeptical of people who say this to try to be good people . The line between good and evil is very thin and if I were in that situation, I don't think I would be able to play the role of a perfect good person .

Personally, I've never been in that situation, but honestly, I don't know what I would do with bitcoin . If it was a large sum worth millions of dollars then I think it would be hard not to be tempted, I think I would just return it to the owner if the amount of bitcoins was too small for me . We should be honest, don't try to live a lie. We work hard and diligently to earn a few satoshis every day and it would be a lie to say that we will return to the owners when we find a few bitcoins or a few dozen bitcoins .

[Apocollapse]

If you accidentally found someone's bitcoin wallet, would you really return it to its owner? Honestly , I'm skeptical of people who say this to try to be good people . The line between good and evil is very thin and if I were in that situation, I don't think I would be able to play the role of a perfect good person .

Personally, I've never been in that situation, but honestly, I don't know what I would do with bitcoin . If it was a large sum worth millions of dollars then I think it would be hard not to be tempted, I think I would just return it to the owner if the amount of bitcoins was too small for me . We should be honest, don't try to live a lie. We work hard and diligently to earn a few satoshis every day and it would be a lie to say that we will return to the owners when we find a few bitcoins or a few dozen bitcoins .

If you care with every satoshis you make every day, I don't think you accept to lose a satoshi.

But it's good if you want to be honest, this is a part of morality, since we're live in capitalist society, it's nothing surprising people want to lose almost everything in order to earn money. As some people said, it's better to cry alone in luxury house than together but you can't even afford to buy foods.

[Troytech]

Like the title says what are the rules. If I miraculously got a private key to a wallet that had Bitcoin in it but was not mine originally then does that mean I now own the wallet like finders keepers and is there any legality issues with this in the usa,uk,canada,south america. Is this more of a morality should you or should you not.

Such miracles don't happen, but I it does, you just got yourself free bitcoin, they is no way I trust anyone to return it and how would you even know the owner of the wallet.

Wallets are actually location on the blockchain where your bitcoin are stored and private keys are your access to the location on the block chain, I Don't think there is anyway, you would actually end up with someones private key even if you try to guess.

You didn't hack so I don't think any laws are against you on this.

[synchronym]

I would say it is similar to finding a bank note. You could report it to the police, but how should the person who lost the bank note should prove it is his bank note ?

So in total I would follow the general law of the universe: It is all gods will - so pocket the money and be happy

op I can't agree with you. If he gets the wallet, if he makes a diary at the police station after getting the wallet, think about it, how will he make a diary at the police station if Bitcoin is illegal in the country where he got the wallet. Because he will be arrested as soon as he makes a diary in the police station. If bitcoin is illegal, if the government of that country declares bitcoin illegal, then he will never be able to make a diary. This kind of miracle happens a lot though or happens someone's wallet he gets I think it's never right to use someone else's wallet maybe or Germany he gets one he can get into trouble with the law so it's never right to use someone else's wallet.

[pinggoki]

Unless the real owner doesn't have any access to that wallet anymore and they have no means to know about the address of the wallet then you're likely good to go and do your finders keepers rule but you know that it's your moral obligation to find the person that truly owns that bitcoin right? I think that you should go to that route first of finding the owner rather than taking it all for yourself, I assume that you're a man of high standard when it comes to morality because you've asked first what to do in the case that you've found a wallet and you have an access to it, as much as I'd like to go with my base instinct of getting it for yourself, you need to do this first plus it's really good for you and you can sleep fine when you know that you're not stealing something. To prevent someone from claiming it though as if they really are the owner of that wallet, don't publish the address or the amount that it contains or make them sign a message that will prove their identity.

[fuguebtc]

If you accidentally found someone's bitcoin wallet, would you really return it to its owner? Honestly , I'm skeptical of people who say this to try to be good people . The line between good and evil is very thin and if I were in that situation, I don't think I would be able to play the role of a perfect good person .

Personally, I've never been in that situation, but honestly, I don't know what I would do with bitcoin . If it was a large sum worth millions of dollars then I think it would be hard not to be tempted, I think I would just return it to the owner if the amount of bitcoins was too small for me . We should be honest, don't try to live a lie. We work hard and diligently to earn a few satoshis every day and it would be a lie to say that we will return to the owners when we find a few bitcoins or a few dozen bitcoins .

If you care with every satoshis you make every day, I don't think you accept to lose a satoshi.

But it's good if you want to be honest, this is a part of morality, since we're live in capitalist society, it's nothing surprising people want to lose almost everything in order to earn money. As some people said, it's better to cry alone in luxury house than together but you can't even afford to buy foods.

That's what I mean , I really don't believe someone would be ethical enough to return bitcoins to the owner if it was a large amount of money . I've seen many people say they're willing to return bitcoins if they happen to find them but honestly, I'm willing to bet with anyone . They will never pay it back if the amount is large enough to tempt them . And like I said, for a small amount I'm willing to return it because it doesn't mean anything to me but if it's worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars I'll become a thief.

We spend hours on forum just to earn a few satoshis a day through signature campaigns, and we'd be lying if we weren't tempted when we accidentally picked up a bitcoin wallet worth millions .

[taufik123]

-snip-
I'm willing to bet with anyone . They will never pay it back if the amount is large enough to tempt them . And like I said, for a small amount I'm willing to return it because it doesn't mean anything to me but if it's worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars I'll become a thief.

We spend hours on forum just to earn a few satoshis a day through signature campaigns, and we'd be lying if we weren't tempted when we accidentally picked up a bitcoin wallet worth millions .

It depends on who finds it, because each human heart will have a different disposition.
But if you bet like that, indirectly, you will assume everyone who gets a wallet with thousands or millions of dollars of bitcoin will directly take it without finding out who owns it.

But if it is me, no matter how much money I find, it is not my right and not mine.
Looking for the owner is the most appropriate action, because I will not use other people's money that is losing.
It makes me also uneasy and life is always in anxiety.

I have been on this forum for almost 10 years and know Bitcoin and what it feels like to lose Bitcoin or other assets,
and it certainly makes us confused and quite stressed when losing assets.

When I find the asset and return it, it will be a quiet life for me.
It's not just about money, it's about how to be a human being who shuns greed and is afraid to take what is not rightfully ours.

[fuguebtc]

-snip-
I'm willing to bet with anyone . They will never pay it back if the amount is large enough to tempt them . And like I said, for a small amount I'm willing to return it because it doesn't mean anything to me but if it's worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars I'll become a thief.

We spend hours on forum just to earn a few satoshis a day through signature campaigns, and we'd be lying if we weren't tempted when we accidentally picked up a bitcoin wallet worth millions .

It depends on who finds it, because each human heart will have a different disposition.
But if you bet like that, indirectly, you will assume everyone who gets a wallet with thousands or millions of dollars of bitcoin will directly take it without finding out who owns it.

But if it is me, no matter how much money I find, it is not my right and not mine.
Looking for the owner is the most appropriate action, because I will not use other people's money that is losing.
It makes me also uneasy and life is always in anxiety.

I have been on this forum for almost 10 years and know Bitcoin and what it feels like to lose Bitcoin or other assets,
and it certainly makes us confused and quite stressed when losing assets.

When I find the asset and return it, it will be a quiet life for me.
It's not just about money, it's about how to be a human being who shuns greed and is afraid to take what is not rightfully ours.

If you can really do what you say, then I admire you very much and believe that there will not be too many people who can do it like you. Furthermore, as I said, none of us have ever been in that situation so it's difficult to know for sure what we would have done then . And as we all know how great the temptation of money is, that's why I'm skeptical when anyone picks up millions of dollars and returns them to their owners.

In life, I am a person who is afraid of retribution, I believe in cause and effect, so I never dare to deceive or take anything from anyone . But I don't know what I would do if I were faced with a large amount of money and it's a completely different problem because I've never been in that situation either.

Furthermore, do you know why I doubt everyone? Because I see people willing to defame each other, willing to find ways to destroy others to compete for bitcoin . They can do anything, so it would be a lie if they accidentally picked up someone else's bitcoin and wanted to return it.

[bettercrypto]

Like the title says what are the rules. If I miraculously got a private key to a wallet that had Bitcoin in it but was not mine originally then does that mean I now own the wallet like finders keepers and is there any legality issues with this in the usa,uk,canada,south america. Is this more of a morality should you or should you not.

How is it a miracle that you have a private key? What you say is not true; unless you are a hacker, that can happen. But the fact that you can discover a private key for Bitcoin is an impossible thing, unless you have a friend who you know is in the field of this industry.

And let's assume that what you said is true. Is there any news of something like that happening in the crypto space that returned a large amount of bitcoin because he discovered a private one that he got in a paper wallet, or a hardware wallet, or maybe in the files of a flash drive?

[taufik123]

How is it a miracle that you have a private key? What you say is not true; unless you are a hacker, that can happen. But the fact that you can discover a private key for Bitcoin is an impossible thing, unless you have a friend who you know is in the field of this industry.

And let's assume that what you said is true. Is there any news of something like that happening in the crypto space that returned a large amount of bitcoin because he discovered a private one that he got in a paper wallet, or a hardware wallet, or maybe in the files of a flash drive?

As in the story of a hard drive being thrown away and someone finding it, it can happen.
But if finding a random private key would be impossible, no one can penetrate a Bitcoin wallet with any random private key even though he is a hacker, it even takes a super computer to brute force, and it takes hundreds of years.

In response about the OP's question, directly if someone has a private key, then it is his/her because you can control it.
But in ownership it belongs to someone else, and you need to find out who owns the wallet.

[nakamura12]

If you find an information of a wallet where you can use to access a wallet with a balance on it then I would say that it is also your coins since you have the private key even though you just found it but if it is all about generating a new wallet and instead of a new wallet but the generated wallet contains bitcoin or someone is already using it is impossible. Someone else own it but you also have control of the wallet then you can move the bitcoin in that wallet and make it as your own but again, as others have explained, generating a wallet that already exist and contains bitcoin is impossible.

Using privacy tools in this case is pretty much like you're supporting criminal IMHO.

I don't think that if someone used a privacy tools then that person is pretty much like supporting a criminal but I would rather say that you are supporting doing criminal activities instead of supporting a criminal even though we know that the purpose of using it is to have privacy. Well, using privacy tools is considered as money laundering since you are hiding a transaction if you use a privacy tools in my opinion. Well, each of us have different views on using privacy tools.

[dezoel]

No one miraculously get someone else's Bitcoin key unless he steals it or hacks it from that individual. It's totally illegal to transfer any amount from that wallet because it's not your wallet and you aren't the owner of it.

In most cases when an owner has a Bitcoin wallet they keep the wallet address with them all the time and when someone makes a transaction out of it then the wallet owner can file a theft case against that thief.
If you really want to be safe from legal actions then don't do anything with that wallet.

Can you tell me that how in this physical and practical world someone could get a private key of a Bitcoin wallet miraculously? As far as I know, no miracles take place in technical world unless someone does a shady thing and considers it a miracle. 

Lol yeah, I wonder how he got it? If it's cryptos and he received it on his wallet, that is more possible. Apart from stealing and hacking, I think someone can also buy a private key and then someone can also search for it on the web. As long as the seller of the private key is also the owner of the wallet, it is legal but the rest seems not. If the lost amount is huge, indeed we must file a case but if not, I think we shouldn't bother anymore.

We can only move to another wallet and be careful with our actions next time. If we do it intentionally, that is not miracle anymore. It's also not a miracle if we won't get caught as it only shows that we are too skilled.