Coinbase Product Head Finds $320,000 in Forgotten Crypto for Hacked User

Conor Grogan, the Head of Product at the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, has recenty through an investigation uncovered a sizable stash of idle cryptocurrencies wirth over $320,000. And subsequently traced their owner to warn them of the funds.

According to a Twitter thread Grogan shared with his followers on the microblogging platform Twitter, he managed to find the funds for a user who had been hacked out of their life savings through a quest that started by checking out the list of the richest addresses of Ethereum Classic ($ETC).

As the Coinbase executive explained, Ethereum’s network forked back in 2016 to create two separate chains, with users who held funds on Ethereum getting credited 1:1 on their funds with Ethereum Classic on the other network.

This airdrop essentially functioned as a distribution of ETC tokens to ETH owners at the time. Despite this windfall, a significant number of recipients never capitalized on their newfound wealth, leading to a pile of untouched and idle tokens.

Grogan was able to pinpoint about 20 addresses that held in excess of $250,000 in Ethereum Classic. A determination worthy of the most seasoned sleuth led him to comb through each of these addresses, while searching for any potential contact method to reach the owners of these addresses.

His relentless efforts bore fruit, albeit after multiple dead ends, when he chanced upon an address bearing the notable prefix “0x475,” even though address tagging wasn’t as developed back then as it is now. While at first the new address also appeared to be a dead end, he soon found the name “EOSDAC” for a token that was airdropped on Ethereum to EOS holders in 2018.

The airdrop connected the Ethereum wallet’s owner to an EOS address, which helped Grogan find out that 0x475 had his life savings stolen back in 2019 and was in a legal battle with their cybersecurity provider and cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.

In a fitting finale to his investigative saga, he made contact with the unsuspecting owner, bringing to them the long-overdue news of their recovered fortune.

Featured image via Unsplash.

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