{"id":53835,"date":"2023-07-06T05:48:52","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T09:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/?p=53835"},"modified":"2023-07-06T05:48:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T09:48:55","slug":"coinbase-engineer-recovers-322000-for-a-wallet-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/coinbase-engineer-recovers-322000-for-a-wallet-owner\/","title":{"rendered":"Coinbase Engineer Recovers $322,000 for a Wallet Owner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Coinbase software engineer shared his story of how he tracked down the owner of a dormant Ethereum wallet and returned their long-forgotten crypto assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Coinbase<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Ethereum Fork of 2016<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Conor Grogan, a crypto enthusiast, and researcher, posted a thread on Twitter\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/g>\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/clipPath>\r\n <\/defs><\/svg><\/span><\/a> detailing how he uncovered $322,000<\/strong> worth of dormant crypto for a stranger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His discovery was based on the 2016 Ethereum fork<\/a> that led to the creation of Ethereum Classic (ETC)<\/a>. The fork was a response to the DAO hack, in which an attacker drained over 3.6 million ETH<\/strong> from a vulnerable smart contract. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fork<\/use><\/svg><\/span><\/a> moved the funds from the compromised contract to a recovery contract, where DAO token holders could withdraw their ETH. However, the fork also gave every ETH holder an equal amount of ETC on the new chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Grogan, many people have not claimed their ETC balances since the fork, leaving them untouched in their wallets. He said he had previously recovered six-figure amounts of crypto for investors by notifying them of their ETC holdings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shared a screenshot of a previous conversation in which he informed a Twitter user of 23 ETH <\/strong>they were unaware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Grogan said he found a list of accounts that had not moved their ETC balances since the fork. He identified 20 addresses<\/strong> with over $250,000<\/strong> worth of crypto in them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He then tried to track down the owners of these wallets using various methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 0x475 Address<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

One of the wallets that caught his attention had the prefix “0x475”<\/strong>. The wallet had an EOSDAC token<\/use><\/svg><\/span><\/a>, which was airdropped to ETH holders in 2018. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using this information, Grogan was able to find the snapshot date and amount of the airdrop and link it to the owner's EOS wallet. He then conducted a Google search for the owner's name and found some legal documents that confirmed his identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grogan contacted the owner via email and informed him of his ETC balance, which was worth over $322,000 at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also provided instructions on how to access and transfer the funds. He hoped that he had made the owner's day with his discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grogan concluded his thread by saying that he found more Poloniex<\/a> wallets with unclaimed ETC balances. He asked Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, to send him a direct message so he could share the full list with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poloniex is a crypto exchange that was acquired by Sun in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lost and Found Crypto<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Grogan's story is not the only one of its kind. In an earlier report, he said that users had lost 636,000 ETH, <\/strong>worth about $1.1 billion, due to vulnerabilities in smart contracts. However, this amount does not include forgotten wallets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coinbase introduced a new tool <\/use><\/svg><\/span><\/a>in December 2022 to help its users recover over 4,000<\/strong> unsupported ERC-20 tokens sent to its wallets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tool lets users recover lost tokens by providing the contract address and transaction ID. Ethereum's account abstraction feature could also help users recover their crypto. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feature simplifies the network and allows users to reclaim their crypto if they lose their private keys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grogan's story shows that there is still a lot of crypto waiting to be claimed by its rightful owners. It also shows that there are people who are willing to help others find their lost treasures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coinbase software engineer shared his story of how he tracked down the owner of a dormant Ethereum wallet and returned their long-forgotten crypto assets. The Ethereum Fork of 2016 Conor Grogan, a crypto enthusiast, and researcher, posted a thread on Twitter detailing how he uncovered $322,000 worth of dormant crypto for a stranger. His discovery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":53864,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[150,15150,15149,1971],"class_list":["post-53835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethereum-news","tag-coinbase","tag-conor-grogan","tag-ethereum-fork","tag-wallets"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/ethereum-fork.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinscreed.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}