This is Kevin Day, the man who bought 260,000 $BTC for $0.01 each!
Now his portfolio would be worth $27.4B but...
He lost everything in one of the biggest exchange rollbacks in crypto history
Here is the TRAGIC story of an unfulfilled #Bitcoin billionaireš§µš
Kevin Day was a 1990s geek from Nebraska
š· He worked as a video game developer in many popular games like Mortal Kombat 4, NBA Showtime, etc
š· He also started his startup but then went on hosting websites
š· That's when he became interested in $btc
Kevin joined when the price was $7
š· This was the moment when was already slowly gaining popularity, as it had risen from $0.3
š· At first, he was frantically trying to mine BTC
š· Now is the most interesting partš
Kevin joined when the price was $7
š· This was the moment when was already slowly gaining popularity, as it had risen from $0.3
š· At first, he was frantically trying to mine BTC
š· Now is the most interesting partš
On June 19, 2011 ā Kevin got a life-changing opportunity
š· Back then crashed from $17 to $0.01 in ~20 minutes
š· At a time when many got scared and exited the market, he seized the opportunity
š· He bid to buy $3,000 worth of $BTC for $0.0101
Kevin bought 259,684 BTC for just $3K
š· By the time $BTC returned to its price, he already had a ~166,000% gain
š· Back then, his profit was $5M, but today it would be $27.4B
š· But that's where Kevinās luck ends....
He kept all his in exchange, which turned out to be not the best decision
š· The flash crash was due to an exchange hack ā a hacker had stolen the coins and then sold them to crash the market
š· Mt. Gox quickly announced it would "roll back" the trades
A rollback meant all trades after the hack would be canceled ā including Kevin's
š· Other buyers who put in legitimate orders ā bought hundreds of for nothing and saw 0 BTC balances
š· Users were deceived and devastated at that time
A little later, Mt. Gox reported 25,000 BTC stolen
š· The exchange was now blaming its own auditor
But luckily, or not so much, Kevin managed to make a small withdrawal
š· Of the 260,000 he bought, he withdrew 643 BTC ā the most allowed by the exchange's own policies
Let me explain moreš
Obviously, Kevin wasnāt responsible for his exchangeās security
š· But Mt. Gox never refunded any individuals who were hacked, despite the rollback setting a dangerous precedent
š· And many thought that Kevin was the Mt. Gox hacker, calling him a thief
Btc users were looking for answers as to why this happened, and Kevin was among the few who stepped forward
š· He believed his trade was legitimate
š·He even went on an early BTC TV show to defend himself
Some defended him and urged him to call a lawyer
š· Some claimed Kevin had stepped up, and some called him a āhero.ā
š· Lawyers advised Kevin to sue Mt. Gox, but he didn't want to tank the Bitcoin economy, putting BTC over his profit
The debates continued, discussing the main next idea:
š· Should exchanges be held to the same standards as Bitcoin?
š· Unfortunately, most don't give users any rights to their coins
Ofc, Mt. Gox would do what was in its best interest ā erasing all the trades
š· But Kevin lost 259,360.
š· So what's the valuable lesson here:
Never leave all your coins on an exchange