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