WRITING / NOTE
How I Received a Bitcoin Faucet Airdrop in 2011
A personal data archaeology exercise using old Google Reader and Dropbox archives to reconstruct how I created my first Bitcoin wallet in 2011.
On the fifteenth anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper, I wanted to share a personal journey of data archaeology: how I received a small Bitcoin faucet airdrop in 2011. The story also happens to involve the well-known Mt. Gox hack.
Looking back, the likely chain of events was this: after Mt. Gox users had 25,000 BTC stolen, technology media began paying more attention to Bitcoin. I noticed those reports, followed the trail, and eventually created my first Bitcoin wallet.
Google Reader & Dropbox: My Data Vault
You have probably heard many stories about people buying Bitcoin years ago and then losing their private keys. Fortunately, I have always liked backing up and archiving data. With those old archives, I was able to reconstruct the process of creating my first Bitcoin wallet and claiming Bitcoin. I also found several Bitcoin-related articles from technology media, Guokr, and CoolShell.
Reconstructing something that happened more than ten years ago is not easy. Over those years, I changed laptops many times. Even if you have a habit of backing up data, files can disappear, and storage media such as hard drives and optical discs are not permanent.
This time, the recovery mainly depended on Google Reader and Dropbox. Google Reader was an RSS reader. Back then, I used it to follow technology media, design blogs, lifestyle blogs, and similar sources. I often saved good articles for later. When Google Reader shut down in July 2013, it offered a data export feature. I exported all my saved items and stored them in Dropbox.
I had never thought that this archive would be useful. But more than a decade later, it still contained enough traces to follow.
Data Mining: Tracing Early Bitcoin Coverage
I searched my personal Google Reader archive for every entry related to “BTC”, “比特币”, and “Bitcoin”. I found nearly ten related articles. Five are still accessible today.
The earliest one: June 18, 2011
Two more similar reports two days later: June 20, 2011
- “Bitcoin Market Attack Causes Rollback”
- “Is the World Crazy Because of Bitcoin, or Is Bitcoin Itself Crazy?”
CoolShell: August 11, 2011
Chen Hao of CoolShell, also known as “Left Ear Mouse”, mentioned Bitcoin and its fork Namecoin in an article. He was a well-known technical expert who often criticized Bitcoin and sadly passed away earlier that year.
Guokr: December 2011
Guokr translated and published WIRED’s article about the rise and fall of Bitcoin.
Why I Created a Bitcoin Wallet
In 2011, Bitcoin had little practical trading value. To promote Bitcoin and expand its reach, some early enthusiasts created faucet websites. Curious users could complete simple actions, such as filling in a captcha, and receive a small amount of Bitcoin for free, often around 0.01 BTC.
After browsing a few faucet sites, I successfully received 0.01 BTC. Because I was in the habit of backing things up, I also kept the private key file for that Bitcoin wallet.
Years later, when I found the file on an old hard drive, extracted the public and private keys, and searched the address through a block explorer, I discovered that the faucet claim happened on June 18, 2011. That was the same day I saved the article “Hackers Have Started Stealing Bitcoin Currency”.
June 2011 was a special moment for Bitcoin because it was also when the famous Mt. Gox hack happened.
On 13 June 2011, the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange reported some BTC 25,000 (US$400,000 at the time) had been stolen from 478 accounts. (Wikipedia)
The cnbeta article above also mentioned the incident. It is likely that the June 13 theft caused technology media to cover Bitcoin more frequently, which helped more people notice it. Because of that negative event, I ended up creating a Bitcoin wallet and claiming what was effectively a tiny Bitcoin “airdrop”.
The Ending
Even though I still have the private key for that address, I have nothing. Even if I still held the 0.01 BTC today, it would not be much.
According to a block explorer, the 0.01 BTC in that wallet was transferred out in November 2013. I have not found clear evidence of why I transferred it or where it went. I vaguely remember doing something at the time, perhaps changing wallets or moving it to an exchange.
So this is, in some sense, a sad story. I first encountered Bitcoin in 2011, but it took until 2017 for me to pay attention to it again and enter the industry. Six years had passed.
The lesson for me is that we may still have chances today to encounter or glimpse new technologies with enormous potential. But they may need far more time before society can accept and understand them. What suits me best is to keep my curiosity alive, and add a little patience.
Originally published on ChainFeeds Research.