Jimmy was a curious and adventurous boy who loved to explore the old library in his town. He often spent hours browsing through the dusty books and magazines, looking for something interesting to read. One day, he stumbled upon a hidden section of the library that he had never seen before. It was behind a locked door that had a sign that said “Restricted Access”. Jimmy was intrigued by the mystery and decided to try to open the door.
He found a paper clip and straightened it out with his fingers. He then bent one end into a small hook and the other end into a thin L-shape. He inserted the L-shaped end into the bottom of the keyhole and twisted it slightly to keep some tension on the lock. He then used the hook to lift each pin inside the lock until it clicked into place. After several minutes of trial and error, he managed to pick the lock and open the door. Jimmy entered the room.
Inside, he saw shelves full of old computers, monitors, keyboards and other electronic devices. They looked like they had not been used for years. Jimmy wondered what they were doing there and who had used them. He walked around the room and noticed a desk with a laptop on it. The laptop was plugged in but turned off. Jimmy pressed the power button and waited for it to boot up.
The laptop showed a login screen that asked for a username and password. Jimmy tried to guess what they could be, but none of his attempts worked. He was about to give up when he saw a piece of paper sticking out from under the keyboard. He pulled it out and read what was written on it:
cactus puzzle ocean guitar castle rocket island cheese flower candle window music
Jimmy recognized these words as part of a mnemonic phrase that could be used to access a Bitcoin wallet. He had learned about Bitcoin from his older brother who was into cryptocurrency and had explained to him in detail how it worked. Jimmy wondered if this phrase belonged to someone who had stored some Bitcoin on this laptop.
He left the room quietly without touching anything else, locked the door behind him, then ran home.
On his desktop computer, he opened the web browser and typed in “bitaddress.org”. He clicked on “wallet” and then on “import wallet seed words”. Then it occurred to him that he should probably do this offline. He disconnected from Wi-Fi, then he entered the 12 words from the paper into the field that said “Enter your recovery phrase”. He clicked on “view details”. He copied the bitcoin address, cleared the cache, then connected to Wi-Fi and went straight to “blockchain.info” to see if the address contained any bitcoins.
To his astonishment, he saw that the address contained 50 bitcoins! That was worth tens of millions of dollars at today’s price! Jimmy couldn’t believe his eyes. He checked the transaction history of the address and saw that these bitcoins were from the very first block ever mined, also known as the genesis block. That meant that they could have belonged to Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin who had disappeared nearly two decades ago!
Jimmy felt a surge of excitement mixed with fear. He realized that he had just stumbled upon one of the biggest secrets in Bitcoin history. If he moved these coins into his own wallet, he would become rich overnight, but he would also attract attention from hackers, thieves, governments and other people who would want to get their hands on them or find out who Satoshi Nakamoto was.
Jimmy thought hard about what he should do next. Should he keep this discovery for himself or share it with someone? Should he move these coins or leave them untouched? Should he try to find out more about Satoshi Nakamoto or respect his privacy?
Jimmy decided that he would not move these coins into his own wallet. He felt that they were not his to take or spend. They were part of Bitcoin’s history and legacy, and moving them would cause too much trouble and controversy for him and for Bitcoin itself.
He also decided that he would not tell anyone about this discovery either. He felt that Satoshi Nakamoto wanted to remain anonymous for a reason, and revealing his identity or location would violate his wishes and put him in danger.
He decided that he would only keep this secret for himself as long as possible until someone else found out or until Satoshi Nakamoto himself came forward.
With a smile on his face, and a secret in his heart, he went back to the library to browse through more dusty books and magazines.