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 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....

⬇️

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

⬇️

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

⬇️

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

⬇️

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

⬇️

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

⬇️

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

⬇️

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

⬇️