Coinbase director, Conor Grogan found $322,000 in inactive ETC and returned it to its owner, who originally had no idea the money existed.
It’s not often that someone finds out they’ve become $322,000 richer overnight, but that’s exactly what happened to one crypto investor in the wee hours of July 5.
Conor Grogan, the head of product at Coinbase, recently revealed how he discovered thousands of dollars worth of dormant cryptocurrency and even managed to get in touch with its unaware owner in a Twitter thread.
I found $322k for a stranger who previously lost their life savings in a hack pic.twitter.com/K1gUqEkAPh
— Conor (@jconorgrogan) July 5, 2023
When the Ethereum blockchain forked in 2016, Ethereum Classic was created. Anyone who had the now-standard Ether on the blockchain received an equal quantity of ETC. According to Grogan, many people never used these new funds.
“Forgetting you have funds on chain (or not keeping track of airdrops) is common,” Grogan remarked, mentioning how he had previously recovered six-figure sums for investors. In a later screenshot, Grogan claimed to have informed a Twitter user of 23 ETH that had been sitting around unclaimed.
Locating these wallets is difficult work. First, Grogan said he combed through the “ETC rich list” in search of accounts with untouchable ETC. After finding about 20 addresses that had more than $250,000 worth of ETC, he searched through each one to find a way to contact the owner.
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With most of the wallets, Grogan claimed he encountered numerous “dead ends” before at last discovering an address beginning with the prefix “0x475.” It’s interesting that the wallet included a cryptocurrency called “EOSDAC,” which was given as an airdrop to Ethereum owners in 2018.
Using the new information, Grogan stated that the airdrop amount and snapshot date allowed him to connect with the holder’s EOS wallet.
“As it turns out, this EOS wallet has quite a history!” said Grogan.
As a result, Grogan was ultimately able to track down the legal name connected to the 0x475 ETH address by carefully reading legal documents.
In an exceptionally heartwarming ending, Grogan was able to contact the owner and inform them of their long-lost riches.
“Hopefully I made his day,” Grogan concluded.