Neovim have a ~$800k Bitcoin donation sitting untouched since 2023

I was looking at neovim's donation footer at the bottom of their site and saw a bitcoin donation address.

Thought I'd check how much in donations they've gotten. And I saw this massive 10 Bitcoin donation from back in 2023 (worth $800,000 now...)

From the activity history, neovim last sent bitcoin out of the address in 2019 so it's been max 7 years since they've definitely had access.

Does anyone from the neovim project know about this? Seems like a pretty significant amount of funding to have sitting there. Hope it can come to good use as I use neovim daily.

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/btc/1Evu6wPrzjsjrNPdCYbHy3HT6ry2EzXFyQ

151 points | by jakemanger 1 hour ago

10 comments

matesz 8 minutes ago
I’ve read so many news stories of people gone missing who had been know to have sole access to bitcoin wallets with large amount of bitcoins in them.
I wonder how people at large crypto exchanges handle that. Perhaps shamir share the access to the pkey password and store parts at secure places like a bank? And make official access protocol akin to dnssec, but simplified?
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- krageon 3 minutes ago
  Large exchanges handle this very simply: If they have the keys, it goes to the inheritor(s) once they get a court order. If they do not, it goes nowhere
seymon 1 hour ago
I hope they still have the private key.
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- osigurdson 8 minutes ago
  It is an interesting fact about Bitcoin in general. There are 21M tokens in total AND some percentage are lost every year. Run this simulation long enough and there will be very few active Bitcoins remaining.
- jakemanger 53 minutes ago
  Really hope so too. Would be devastating
zicohacks 31 minutes ago
I checked their official donation channel is OpenCollective. I think the Bitcoin address is no longer being used and they just forgot to update the footer
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wyclif 1 hour ago
The project no longer uses that Bitcoin wallet for bounties.
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- ricardobeat 1 hour ago
  What does that mean for that donation, and why is the wallet still listed on the website?
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  - ramijames 33 minutes ago
    I think that a large part of the priced in "value" of Bitcoin is just lots and lots of Bitcoin that nobody can access anymore.
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    - abirch 25 minutes ago
      Bitcoin's supposed to be "liquid" but I'm wondering what happens when there's a forced liquidity event.
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      - altmanaltman 7 minutes ago
        I mean, it's the opposite of that; it's forced illiquidity when people lose access to their keys. There is no way to gain access to those coins and you cannot "force" liquidity on the bitcoin protocol.
Razengan 36 minutes ago
This could become the premise of a near-cyberpunk heist movie..
pluc 1 hour ago
hodl
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- jakemanger 17 minutes ago
  They've hodled from the original ~$200,000 donation to $1.2 million, now down to $800,000.
  If they haven't accidentally done this, they've definitely got some balls
- esskay 1 hour ago
  I know you're joking but keeping bitcoin now really does feel like a poor investment given it's showing no signs of ever being revived.
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  - w4yai 53 minutes ago
    https://bitcoindeaths.com/
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    - sjbzbeiks 12 minutes ago
      yeah I mean it just depends on time horizons, if you bought at 117k you are hurting now if you need the money ASAP.
      Also, I gotta say I do not think Bitcoin is a bubble or whatever (IMO a real value there), but really this sort of site makes it seem like it is a bubble with the sort of "blind to history" boosterism.
      Go read Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, or Market Wizards series, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, or any number of books about financial history and there are endless people saying 'it will never die and all the doubters are just wrong' before any big market crash.
    - suddenlybananas 22 minutes ago
      The log scale is awfully misleading, especially since money doesn't really work like that.
    - pluc 22 minutes ago
      what is dead may never die
    - imjonse 11 minutes ago
      to be fair the majority of the statements that site mocks are not about bitcoin being dead but being a ponzi scheme, evil, hard to use by normal people, silly, a risky investment etc.
      All are criticism that can be evaluated on their own but it's irrelevant how much bitcoin grew since they were made.
  - accountrequired 1 hour ago
    Bitcoin died *again*? hehe :P
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    - esskay 52 minutes ago
      oh i dont think its 'dead' in the way people often describe. More...done. Like, the period of obscene growth is over and its now seemingly settled into a fairly dull investment with mediocre returns.
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      - singiamtel 23 minutes ago
        Isn't that a good thing? The main argument I've heard against using bitcoin as currency is that it's too volatile.
      - sph 37 minutes ago
        Well, that’s what people have said all the way to $70k+ price.
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        ForHackernews 21 minutes ago
        It's underperformed the S&P500 over the last 5 years, but you know what they say about past performance not predicting future returns. Maybe AI will unlock an untapped reservoir of ever-greater fools.
  - zeofig 48 minutes ago
    Buy signal
colesantiago 1 hour ago
Bitcoin really isn't money.
They should send it to a dead wallet instead.
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- AIiscoming 1 hour ago
  True and its also not compareable to gold.
  But as long as others giving you real money for this garbage, it would be better to use it for a project like neovim :)
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  - deniska 57 minutes ago
    To never have experienced a usefulness of cryptocurrency is a privileged position to be in.
  - colesantiago 52 minutes ago
    A dead wallet has better use for Bitcoin though.
    We don't know where the Bitcoin has come from, so it needs to go extensive through anti money laundering checks.
    Save the hassle of all of that taxes, accountancy and just send everything to a dead wallet.
    [-]
    - done_lurking 30 minutes ago
      In what country does a bitcoin donation need to go through an "anti money laundering check"? Also, you could pay a lawyer 100k to handle the taxes and accounting and you would still have 700k left over.
- gitowiec 1 hour ago
  Exactly this! It was rendered money by some minds.
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  - nullbio 56 minutes ago
    Unlike that paper money. That paper money was created by the Gods!
  - colesantiago 51 minutes ago
    It is even more useless than fiat.
JimBlackwood 1 hour ago
I imagine they might wait, to make it’s legally obtained Bitcoin.
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- a3w 48 minutes ago
  In which country would waiting help?
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  - cyberpunk 43 minutes ago
    In Germany at least if you've held the coin(s) for 7 years before selling you don't need to pay tax on the profit.
    Not sure how this applies to donations though, and of course this will almost certainly be changed in the future, .nl is leading the way in taxing _unrealised_ gains; we are sure to follow!
    [-]
    - T0Bi 37 minutes ago
      It's one year, unless something changed recently.
    - la_fayette 28 minutes ago
      1 year
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      - ksk23 21 minutes ago
        One year yes, and politics wants to change it..
- yieldcrv 27 minutes ago
  Something that takes 5 seconds with bitcoin, faster than any other property type, is something you rationalize as taking 7 years
  Why does HN collectively tolerate this level of understanding when it comes to crypto
loopydosuette 59 minutes ago
is this (w)hole lie still hodling up? crazy! is my botnet still not out of puberty?