Commemorating the 15th Anniversary of the Bitcoin White Paper: How Did I Receive Bitcoin Airdrop in 2011?
Do we still have to thank Mt. Gox?Author: Pan Zhixiong, ChainFeeds
On the 15th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper's release, I would like to share a personal "data archaeology" journey. This is the story of how I received a Bitcoin airdrop in 2011, which also involves the infamous Mt. Gox theft incident.
Looking back at the whole process, it is likely that the increased media attention on Bitcoin after 25,000 BTC were stolen from Mt. Gox users led me to notice this event and create my first Bitcoin wallet.
Google Reader & Dropbox: My Data Vault
You may have heard many stories about "buying some Bitcoin in a certain year, but later losing the private key." Fortunately, I love backing up and archiving data, so with the archived data I had, I was able to reconstruct the process of creating my Bitcoin wallet and receiving Bitcoin for the first time, and I even dug up some articles from that time about Bitcoin, including those from tech media, Guokr, and CoolShell.
Reconstructing something that happened over a decade ago is not that simple. After all, I have changed many laptops over the years, and even though I have a habit of regularly backing up data, I may have lost a lot of it, and even the backup media may not be reliable (for example, hard drives and CDs have their lifespans).
This time, the recovery of data mainly relied on Google Reader and Dropbox. Google Reader was an RSS reading tool, and I primarily used it to subscribe to various tech media, design, and lifestyle blogs. For quality content, I often used the favorite feature for easy reference later. Google Reader ceased operation in July 2013, but they provided a data export feature, so I exported all my favorite content and stored it in Dropbox.
I had never thought about the value of this data, but I was surprised to find some clues after more than a decade.
Data Mining: Tracing the Footsteps of Bitcoin News Coverage
I searched through my personal Google Reader archive files for all data related to "BTC," "Bitcoin," and "Bitcoin," and found nearly 10 relevant articles, of which 5 are still accessible.
The earliest one: June 18, 2011
“Hackers Have Started Stealing Bitcoin Currency”
Two days later, there were two similar articles: June 20, 2011
“Bitcoin Market Attacked Leading to Retracement”
“Is the World Crazy Because of Bitcoin, or is Bitcoin Itself Crazy?”
CoolShell: August 11, 2011
Chen Hao (also known as Left Ear Mouse, a tech expert who unexpectedly passed away in May this year and often criticized Bitcoin) mentioned Bitcoin and its fork project Namecoin in an article.
“Crazy WEB Application Open Source Projects”
Guokr: December 2011
Guokr compiled and published WIRED's article “The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin”.
Why I Created a Bitcoin Wallet
Bitcoin had no trading value in 2011. At that time, some Bitcoin enthusiasts created various "faucet" websites to promote and expand Bitcoin's influence, allowing curious users to receive a certain amount of Bitcoin (about 0.01 BTC) for free through simple operations, such as filling out a CAPTCHA (anti-bot).
So after searching and browsing some faucet websites, I successfully received 0.01 BTC. Due to my habit of backing up data, I also saved the private key file of this Bitcoin wallet to this day.
Later, when I dug this file out from my hard drive, found the public and private keys, and searched through a block explorer, I discovered that the time I received the faucet was exactly June 18, 2011, which is the same day I saved the article “Hackers Have Started Stealing Bitcoin Currency.”
In fact, June 2011 was a very special time, coinciding with the famous theft at the Mt. Gox exchange.
On June 13, 2011, the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange reported that about 25,000 BTC (US$400,000 at the time) had been stolen from 478 accounts. (Wikipedia)
The article on the cnbeta website also mentioned this incident, so it is likely that the theft on June 13 increased media coverage of Bitcoin, drawing more attention to it. And because of this negative event, I ultimately created a Bitcoin wallet and received the Bitcoin "airdrop."
Conclusion
Although I hold the private key for this address, I still have nothing. Even holding this 0.01 BTC today does not mean much.
According to the block explorer, the 0.01 BTC in my Bitcoin wallet was transferred out in November 2013. As for why it was transferred out at that time and where it went, I have not yet found any concrete clues. But I do remember that I seemed to have done something back then, possibly changing wallets or transferring it to an exchange.
So this is actually a sad story. From first encountering Bitcoin in 2011 to re-engaging with this industry in 2017, six years have passed. The insight this experience gave me is that perhaps we still have the opportunity to encounter or glimpse some highly promising new technologies, but it may really take more time for society to accept and understand them, and what I can do best is to continue to maintain curiosity, along with a bit of patience.
