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- Bitcoin wallet’s private key of Wired was destroyed by him in 2013
- While doing so, Wired wanted to show that the digital assets were nothing else than an abstraction
- The crypto assets at the time he decided to charity them, and later destroyed the keys
Bitcoin has successfully emerged as an alternative asset class. In the current scenario, BTC price has shown tremendous growth, following which it is noted that there is no shortage of individuals and institutions that had previously underestimated the potential of digital assets. Simultaneously, Wired was among one of the naysayers. In 2013, Wired had destroyed the private key to a flagship cryptocurrency’s wallet. Notably, the wallet was holding 13.34623579 BTC. While doing so, Wired wanted to show that the digital assets were nothing else than an abstraction.
Destroyed Bitcoin wallet has $761k worth assets
According to Author McMillan, who is currently working with the Wall Street Journal, he had set up a Butterfly Labs BTC mining rig. Notably, the rig was in the corner of his office at Wired. He did so to just observe what all the fuss was about. However, he was far from impressed with the end result of little mining operations.
Hence, in his report, McMillan wrote that the leading digital asset was really nothing more than an abstraction. While deliberating what to do with the crypto assets at the time he decided to charity them. However, at the end, McMillan planned to destroy the private key to the wallet address instead of making charity. Furthermore, he wrote that the end answer was obvious and they destroyed the private key of their address.
Why did McMillan destroy the wallet?
According to McMillan, destroying the private key of the Bitcoin wallet will leave their growing pile of BTC lucre locked in a digital vault for all eternity. Or at least the assets will stay locked until someone cracks the SHA-256 encryption that secures the transactions on the blockchain network.
It is worth noting that at the time, Butterfly Labs ASIC chips were helping gain on an average of 2 BTC every 10 days. However, in 2013, the price of 2 Bitcoins was about $220. However, in the current world these assets are worth more than $57k for each coin. Indeed, since the time the flagship crypto asset has witnessed a growth of more than 51,000%.
BTC mining difficulty has continued to surge
According to a report shared by New York Times, Back in 2013, to mine 1 Bitcoin, it used to take about just 13 hours on an average. However, in 2014, the difficulty surged to 23 days to mine each asset. Significantly, in today’s dateI miner will require more than 10 years to mine at least 1 BTC. previously, the mining difficulty has been exponentially. Following the scenario, McMillan underscored that it had become about 10 million times harder to win the BTC mining lottery. HOwever, the entire incident with McMillan shows how the digital ecosystem has come a long way from 2013.
