If you got in this situationn! What will you?

[free-bit.co.in]

Even a kind hearted person needs some money you know! Lol...it's a really tough situation to be in but I agree with you on the fact that it'll be really difficult for anyone who stumbles across a billion in bitcoin to turn a blind eye especially when international laws don't apply. I'll also like to know if there are any laws regarding this so I'll be aware.

Anyone who's grownup understand basics of law is if you find someone else's property. You have to report it and return it to the rightful owner, as Stalker22 said.

In this case, when you accidentally find a huge sum of money, the legal aspect seems less important. It's a matter of ethics, imo.

I have no idea how someone who's already rich and sitting on billions, or even tens or hundreds of billions, would handle it. But for regular folks like us, good luck finding someone kind enough to actually give it back  

[Uhwuchukwu53]

I saw this topic on Reddit/Bitcoin, and got curious if this ever happened on anyone. What actually will they do? Or does this kind of scenario implicate some lawful violations. Considering that someone didnt use any sort of unlawful stuff like knocking on someone door and forced to give a private key and steal it.

Lets just say a dormant wallet for a long time and someone luckily guess the keys.

I don't think this is possible to happen but for the fun of it, if I find a private key containing this amount, the first thing I will do is to move the money to a new wallet that I control the private keys before initiating the steps of getting to the rightful owner. I could create a topic here or on any crypto forum where my privacy is guaranteed and the post will request for anyone that have the private keys of the other wallet to come forward and prove ownership by signing a message from the wallet. If that is confirmed publicly, then we can begin discussing ways of returning his money.

Just for discussion, "Odohu" your approach is the best way forward which in my shoe will likely do same thing, only a theft whose mindset is centered on how to collect and scammed people asset will even think contrary without even making trial to see if he can reach the owner, the amount mentioned is big for an investor to accumulate such mostly those that don't have diverse means of income,you should know what the owner goes through to get such seen it as opportunity to divert is dangerous redline to Cross, not every open door is a signal of door been opened, it can also be a trap where lack of selfcontrol will end one with miserable way of life.

[ObeyKnock]

You didn't just hit the jackpot, you hit the jackpot a couple of times in a row.

A few years back there was a large distributed computing project to guess private keys called Large Bitcoin Collider. Users would download the program and contribute computing power, and it would try keys. They had a "trophy list" of private keys they'd discovered, which contained around twelve wallets, only 3 of which contained anything. They'd gone through 3 quadrillion private keys to find dust.

The funniest part is they had a backdoor to steal wallet files from volunteer computers because apparently even THEY thought it'd be more efficient to hack wallets then use ridiculously implausible brute force to get them.

[Hyphen(-)]

Just for discussion, "Odohu" your approach is the best way forward which in my shoe will likely do same thing, only a theft whose mindset is centered on how to collect and scammed people asset will even think contrary without even making trial to see if he can reach the owner, the amount mentioned is big for an investor to accumulate such mostly those that don't have diverse means of income,you should know what the owner goes through to get such seen it as opportunity to divert is dangerous redline to Cross, not every open door is a signal of door been opened, it can also be a trap where lack of selfcontrol will end one with miserable way of life.

The mindset of sending the Bitcoin into another fresh wallet he can control is better, it will give you the control over the Bitcoin since it’s a guess work according to the discussion, but trying to trace the owner of the Bitcoin is the problem I see here. There is no way to find the rightful owner of the Bitcoin because no one will prove he owns it by showing the private key or his/seed phrase publicly looking for hack their wallet or so.

Furthermore, this is not the only Bitcoin forum, and so people don’t know about this forum, I could have say that they can trace it here for you to maybe handover the Bitcoin back if you find the rightful owner of the Bitcoin.

This is just a framed story I think because guessing private key or seed phrase is something I don’t think is possible at all, so we can’t say that this is correct, but if it happens to me, I am holding the Bitcoin because so many lost private keys or so many wallets that contained Bitcoin in them are like lost Bitcoin , and this is another reason why Bitcoin value will keep going up.

[acener]

I saw this topic on Reddit/Bitcoin, and got curious if this ever happened on anyone. What actually will they do? Or does this kind of scenario implicate some lawful violations. Considering that someone didnt use any sort of unlawful stuff like knocking on someone door and forced to give a private key and steal it.

Lets just say a dormant wallet for a long time and someone luckily guess the keys.

Dormant or new private keys, you can not know that the owner lost the wallet or still own it with accessible private keys. If you don't know that but you still steal the coins, you are a criminal, surely.

If the owner lost the keys, for example in dormant wallet case, it is still morally wrong if you steal the coins in that wallet.

In legal aspect, if you steal something from anyone, it's illegal and you're a criminal.

You can not bruteforce my email password, access it and say you don't do anything wrong both morally and legally.

But how could they prove that it is their wallet if they lost the keys, and the one who guessed it is now holding the access to the wallet?
Let's change the situation, let's say you picked up a lost wallet from the street, without ID or any clue to who the owner is, it only have money in it, would you give it to any person that claims it as their wallet?
There are people out there that would surely wouldn't mind spending the money in it.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

I’d probably put out messages on X, bitcointalk and as many other platforms as possible to try and locate the owner of those coins. If they could provide proof that those coins were theirs I would negotiate a bounty and return the majority back to them. I am talking >500BTC for a $1bn rated stack return though.

[Tetu100]

First of all, I will say it's almost impossible for someone to just randomly guess the private keys of an existing wallet containing such a significant amount without making any mistakes. However, let me assume it happens by chance even though it is rare. The person can always do as will with the coin since he's in possession of the private keys.

Remember the gold rule state that not your keys not your coin. Since the said person is already in possession of every necessary information that can access the wallet in question, then logically he's the sole owner of the coin in it. Maybe, if at all the real own has some substantial evidence he can be able to present to challenge the situation at court.

[lionheart78]

Remember the gold rule state that not your keys not your coin. Since the said person is already in possession of every necessary information that can access the wallet in question, then logically he's the sole owner of the coin in it. Maybe, if at all the real own has some substantial evidence he can be able to present to challenge the situation at court.

So are you saying that when a person finds a car with a key in it, that person can just drive that car and take it away?  I am just curious because the way you present your argument is exactly the same as my example.  The only difference is that Bitcoin is a virtual asset, and the car is a tangible/physical asset.

Saying the person who found the Bitcoin's private address a sole owner does not fit the narrative because the original owner also has the private key of that address.  The one who found the private key just gained access to that wallet and is legally and morally not the original owner of the Bitcoin stored on that wallet address.

I’d probably put out messages on X, bitcointalk and as many other platforms as possible to try and locate the owner of those coins. If they could provide proof that those coins were theirs I would negotiate a bounty and return the majority back to them. I am talking >500BTC for a $1bn rated stack return though.

This should be the best move if we want some money out of the situation, but the problem is that the owner does not need to give proof, knowing that others have access to their BTC, they just need to move the Bitcoins to another Bitcoin address.

[Cookdata]

First of all, I will say it's almost impossible for someone to just randomly guess the private keys of an existing wallet containing such a significant amount without making any mistakes. However, let me assume it happens by chance even though it is rare. The person can always do as will with the coin since he's in possession of the private keys.

Remember the gold rule state that not your keys not your coin. Since the said person is already in possession of every necessary information that can access the wallet in question, then logically he's the sole owner of the coin in it. Maybe, if at all the real own has some substantial evidence he can be able to present to challenge the situation at court.

I love to use assumption but you see 2^256 is not a small number. I don't think even with fictional mind one would write to assume such numbers because practically it's impossible. The only chances is you have is maybe if you try private keys that are without random entropy, you may stand some chance with luck, but that still need  some computing power before you can have access one private key with balance, that is if the balance is more than the resources you spent to brute force it.

If you found a billion worth of Bitcoin, then happy birthday. There is literally no ownership in Bitcoin than private key control. If you control the private key then you control the amount on the address. It's left for you to decide if you are a whitehacker or somebody that is heartless Some people will take percentage and some will not even care if the rightful owner exist.

[taufik123]

I’d probably put out messages on X, bitcointalk and as many other platforms as possible to try and locate the owner of those coins. If they could provide proof that those coins were theirs I would negotiate a bounty and return the majority back to them. I am talking >500BTC for a $1bn rated stack return though.

The best step to take, rather than just taking the BTC without taking any action to find its owner, is an action that cannot be appreciated.
But by making an effort to find out the owner and be able to prove it, it's the right way to go and you can also negotiate how much to return
and you also get the benefit without having to be burdened that the Bitcoin belongs to someone else.

But if you keep trying to find the owner but no one finds it, then it's your own decision because you own the Private key.

This should be the best move if we want some money out of the situation, but the problem is that the owner does not need to give proof, knowing that others have access to their BTC, they just need to move the Bitcoins to another Bitcoin address.

In this case, it may be that the owner no longer has access or lost his private key, and what someone else has found is a backup Private Key that was created.
There are many loss scenarios that can occur, but to claim it requires more proof of ownership.