Coinbase Executive Detects $320K in Crypto Belonging to a ‘Stranger’

Grogan’s good deed received a wave of positive comments, with some calling him a “hero.”

Conor Grogan – the head of product at Coinbase – said he found $322,000 worth of digital assets that belonged to a person who was unaware of that since the funds were transferred after Ethereum’s hard fork in 2016.

The executive discovered that the owner of the crypto stash had previously become a victim of hackers who drained their entire life savings.

Lucky Day for Numerous Investors Thanks to Grogan
Coinbase’s director announced on Twitter that he had tracked down “6+ figures” for people who have forgotten they have funds onchain or have not realized they were awarded some tokens via airdrops.

One reason individuals might have been sitting on substantial sums without knowing is Ethereum’s hard forking event in 2016 when the protocol split into Ethereum Classic (with a native token ETC) and Ethereum ((ETH).

“ETH forked in 2016; if you held a balance, you would get credited 1:1 the ETC. My thesis is that many people are not aware that they were in the snapshot,” Grogan explained.

Twitter user Griff Green is one such person who had 23 ETH but never knew of their existence. Due to ether’s price appreciation over the years, the stash is currently worth almost $45,000 (7,400% more than the $600 at the time).

Grogan’s biggest discovery was an account that held over $320,000 worth of ETC. While finding the owner was no easy task, he stumbled upon “one unique coin” called EOSDAC. The token was airdropped on Ethereum to EOS holders in 2018, helping Grogan to connect the dots and discover the lucky person.

It seems fate has finally smiled on the latter, considering they have fallen prey to a hacker in 2019, resulting in all life savings lost. Apart from that, the individual was involved in a legal battle with the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex.

Grogan posted a screenshot of the conversation between him and the person in question, revealing that the latter had no idea about the existence of those assets.

Numerous Twitter users commented below the post, highlighting Grogan’s act. Binance’s Chief Strategy Officer – Patrick Hillmann – was among them.

Ethereum Classic: the Original Form of Ethereum
Ethereum Classic is an open-source, decentralized cryptocurrency platform that runs smart contracts. Despite being less popular than Ethereum, it is considered by some the original version of the blockchain protocol.

It was formed in 2016 as a result of a massive attack known as “The DAO hack.” The DAO, which was a decentralized venture fund used by Ethereum investors, amassed at one point over 11 million ETH. However, hackers found cracks and siphoned approximately a third of those assets.

Most DAO members wanted to restore the stolen funds to investors, but not all agreed. This led to the split of Ethereum Classic (according to which “Code is Law”) and Ethereum.

The former has a native token called ETC, which is a no-match to ETH but has been on a roll lately. It currently hovers around $20, whereas its market capitalization is less than $3 billion (per CoinGecko data).