Not A Bit

Yesterday, in my personal documents, I stumbled upon a link to an old Bitcoin wallet which I had opened years ago and had completely forgotten about. I vaguely recall opening that account but it meant nothing to me. Out of curiosity, I googled the website. On its landing page in plain font was a notice informing readers that as of January 2020 the company had ceased trading and had closed down. I sent an email to the support email address enquiring about my old account, just in case. I mean, you never know. Maybe I did buy a bit of Bitcoin.

Within a day I got a reply. My email address was recognised as a Bitcoin wallet account holder and I had opened my account on St Valentine’s Day in 2014 and the account was still open. They would get back to me. I was excited!

I did some research. Back in early 2014 the price of Bitcoin was around US$300, or ~ZAR2400 back then, and R2400 back then would have been a manageable amount. I was reasonably well-off in 2014. I could have spent that amount of money without flinching.

If not one whole Bitcoin, then perhaps there was a remnant of Bitcoin in the account. Even a small amount of Bitcoin back then would be worth a chunk of change today.

Today (April 2025), Bitcoin is trading at around R1 600 000. A small gift of even $10 worth of Bitcoin would be worth about R48 000 now.

So, the million-dollar question was this: did I have the presence of mind to buy Bitcoin in 2014, and did my account have even a scrap of Bitcoin in it?

Their reply came the next day. Here it is, verbatim:

Please be informed that this account is empty. It was registered on 2014-02-14, but it was never used (no transactions were made).
Regards,
VirWoX Support