BlockBeats News, July 12th, according to Coindesk's report, as Bitcoin has recently hit new highs, early Bitcoin investor and BitcoinTalk forum user "JohnGalt" successfully redeemed his 13-year-old Casascius physical Bitcoin bar, extracting the 100 Bitcoin private keys stored inside, and earning approximately 10 million US dollars in profit.
JohnGalt stated that he initially spent $500 to purchase this bar in 2012, when Bitcoin was only about $5 per coin, with almost no one interested. In his post, he admitted that over the years he had tried to sell the bar many times, even considering auctioning it off, but the process was often hindered by pricing disputes and trust issues, making it impossible to complete a transaction smoothly. Now, as Bitcoin has surpassed $100,000, JohnGalt felt that continuing to hold onto a physical asset worth "eight figures in USD" was too risky, prompting him to finally extract these 100 bitcoins.
It is worth noting that since BCH uses the same private key mechanism as Bitcoin, astute Internet users swiftly claimed $40,000 worth of BCH by extracting it using the private key visible in the photo before JohnGalt could secure it, all within a quick 9-minute process.