{"id":7478,"date":"2022-02-10T10:03:15","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T10:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=7478"},"modified":"2022-02-10T10:03:15","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T10:03:15","slug":"the-hackers-hunting-for-lost-bitcoin-billions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/egrowonline.com\/?p=7478","title":{"rendered":"The hackers hunting for lost Bitcoin billions"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Rhonda Kampert (left) used her recovered Bitcoin to help her daughter, Megan, through university<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Rhonda Kampert was an early adopter.<\/p>\n

She bought six Bitcoins in 2013, when they cost about $80 each, and were the chatter of niche corners of the internet.<\/p>\n

“I used to listen to a radio talk show and they started talking about crypto and Bitcoin so I got interested,” she says.<\/p>\n

“Back then buying it was so complicated but I fumbled my way through the process and bought my coins.”<\/p>\n

Rhonda, who lives in the US state of Illinois, spent some of her digital money over the next year or so, then forgot about it.<\/p>\n

But when she saw headlines late in 2017 announcing that the value of Bitcoin had risen to nearly $20,000 she excitedly went to her computer to log in and cash out.<\/p>\n

Except there was a problem. She was missing some of the login details for her Bitcoin wallet – a computer program or device that stores a set of secret numbers, or private keys.<\/p>\n

“I realised then that my printout had missed some digits on the end of my wallet identifier. I had a piece of paper with my password but no idea what my wallet ID was,” Rhonda says.<\/p>\n

“It was awful. I tried everything for months but it was hopeless. So I kind of gave up.”<\/p>\n

Fast forward to last spring and the value of Bitcoin soared above $50,000 – more than 600 times what Rhonda had paid eight years earlier.<\/p>\n

Filled with a renewed determination to find her coins, she hit the internet and came across father and son crypto treasure hunters Chris and Charlie Brooks.<\/p>\n

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Charlie and Chris Brooks say they have recovered Bitcoins worth a seven-figure sum in the past year<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

“After talking to the guys online for a while I trusted them enough to hand over all the details I could remember. Then I waited,” she says.<\/p>\n

“Eventually we sat down together on a video call and watched everything happen. Chris opened the wallet and there it was. I just felt so relieved!”<\/p>\n

Rhonda’s wallet of three-and-a-half Bitcoin was at that point worth $175,000.<\/p>\n

“I gave Chris and Charlie their 20%, then the first thing I did was take out $10,000 worth of my coins to help my daughter Megan through college.”<\/p>\n