
Ask HN: Lost $400k USD in a deleted email, how contact a Gmail engineer? - lostethpresale
On the 8th of June 2014 I purchased 1970 Ethereum from the Ethereum Foundation Presale and received an email to my Gmail account containing my wallet.
As CS student overwhelmed by his thesis I managed to completely ignore the backup instructions and instead left my wallet in my Gmail account.
At least the thesis was good :)<p>You can probably tell where this story is going.
I promptly forgot about this whole event and in 2015 while cleaning out my email account I deleted most of my recently received emails and incidently taking out the wallet with it.
Again I&#x27;d like to state that the loss of the wallet is completely my fault.<p>Recently, the price of Ethereum has skyrocketed to over 200 USD per coin, meaning the wallet is now worth ~400k USD.
This means that I can now offer a nice bounty on its retrieval!<p>I&#x27;m publicly posting here in the hope that someone from the Gmail team can check and see if they have a copy of the email saved in Google&#x27;s backups.
Should its contents be retrieveable, I&#x27;d like to offer 20% of the wallet&#x27;s contents (~80k USD) as a finder&#x27;s fee, alternatively if you choose to forfit this, I&#x27;ll donate 50% (~200k USD) to a charity of your choice.<p>I realise that this is a last ditch attempt and that wallet is most likely lost forever.<p>This brings us to the morale of the story - &quot;make sure you have backups and they work!&quot;
The 2nd morale is - &quot;no matter how badly you mess up, at least you aren&#x27;t the guy that deleted an email worth 400k!&quot;<p>If you work on Gmail and you can help or know someone that will lead to its retrevial please contact me [at] lostethpresale@doge.st<p>Best wishes!<p>If you want, you can encrypt your mail to me with my public key: (text too long for HN)
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pastebin.com&#x2F;raw&#x2F;zgZpSKJd
======
throwaway642739
Throwaway because I work at Google (but not on Gmail) and don't want to
associate any of my HN posts with anything even remotely related (as a matter
of personal policy).

That said, you're out of luck. Google has pretty strict data policies, and if
a user deletes some their data (e.g. an email), it's my understanding that
we're required to purge it from our all our systems (with maybe a couple
months or so of leeway since we've got a lot of users and a lot of data).
After a couple years of being deleted? Yeah, that email is gone. Forever.

------
joshstrange
I doubt you are going to have much luck, probably best to forget the whole
thing and move on. I mined 100BTC back in 2009/10 and then never backed up the
wallet or bothered with the private keys because it wasn't even worth a
dollar, today it's worth $221,711. I always comfort myself that I would have
sold out when it hit $8/BTC or even less. No use crying over spilled milk.

~~~
iamatworknow
Back around the summer of 2010 I decided to play around a little bit with
Bitcoin mining while I was looking for a job after college. For a couple of
weeks I let the computer mine and accumulated what amounted to pocket change,
then gave up and forgot about it.

I've spent many hours over the past year or so digging through old burned
backup CDs, DVDs, and hard drives trying to find the wallet, with no luck so
far. Maybe someday.

~~~
meowface
If it makes you feel better, unless you had a good GPU, what you earned might
not have been worth more than a few thousand dollars (at current BTC prices).
Though the difficulty was certainly much less in 2010, so who knows.

~~~
joshstrange
I mined 100BTC on my CPU in like the summer of 2010 solo mining. I attempted
to do GPU mining but the tooling was very specific at the time and I wasn't
really that interested. I didn't even fully understand BTC at the time past
"Digital Currency", "Proof of work", "Run minner = get BTC". I want to say the
block size was 50 at the time so mining 2 block all on mine own on a CPU was
pretty impressive IMHO.

~~~
iamatworknow
That's basically the state I was at as well. My exact thought was something
like, "A currency that you make by running a program like 'Folding@Home'?
Might as well try."

Even if I didn't actually mine a ton, it still would be neat to find it. I
know it's gotta be there somewhere.

~~~
joshstrange
I know mine is long gone, my old gaming rig was what I mined it all on and
I've rebuilt that machine with different OS's a million times over since I
mined it and rarely backed up anything but maybe some media. Everything I
cared about was on my laptop.

------
bobsgame
Do you have any old phones that you synced with POP3? Windows Mobile? Outlook
or Windows Mail? Ever connect it to Thunderbird? (Be careful with anything
IMAP, check offline) Can you contact the sender of the email and see if they
can get a copy from their sent archive? Ever download a Google Takeout
archive? Try Google Takeout anyway? Try POP3 sync, then reset POP3 status and
resync?

------
redcalx
I assume you already tried this, but here is google's data download page:

[https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout](https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout)

If it aint in there then I assume it's gone and only the NSA and/or GCHQ will
have a copy.

~~~
k33n
Cue a black budget program of retrieving all the lost cryptocurrency and
selling it off.

------
ChicagoBoy11
This is designed for emails missing in case of account breach, but it is worth
a shot:

[https://support.google.com/mail/contact/missingemails](https://support.google.com/mail/contact/missingemails)

~~~
cyptus
you should give this a try

------
atonse
My wife always says that growing up, all her dad and brother used to talk
about at the dinner table was "I should've invested in that stock when it was
cheaper!" or "I should've sold when it was higher!"

I feel that way about Bitcoin/others. It's always regret all the way. It's
like buying a stock.

I had a chance to mine lots of bitcoins in 2011... never got around to doing
it. It's now the same as "I should've bought Apple stock the day before the
rumored iPhone debuted, like I told friends to do"

~~~
redeemedfadi
You always remember the successful investments you didn't make, but not the
unsuccessful ones. Think of all the money you didn't lose making bad
investments.

~~~
ShannonAlther
If you're a little faster than average on the draw and have money to burn, the
profits from the successful investments outweigh the money lost on the
unsuccessful ones. E.g. if you have $50k, and spend it on five companies, only
one of those companies has to be Apple for you to make way more than you
started with...

~~~
OJFord
Apple isn't a '1 in 5' company, though.

------
kimcheekumquat
Do you remember your password?

From the Ethereum presale message:

    
    
        You are about to make an ether purchase. Please keep the attached wallet file safe. It will serve as a cryptographic receipt of your purchase, along with your password.
    
        The password you created and entered on the sale site is the key to your ether so please do not forget it. And please note: there are no mechanisms in place that will enable the Ethereum team to help you recover a lost password. Once it is lost, your purchased ether will be permanently inaccessible.

------
maxsavin
You might want to ask a lawyer to subpoena them. Time is ticking - I believe
backups are held for only a bit of time.

~~~
siegel
This is probably the only real hope. Problem is you cannot subpoena Google
without first filing a lawsuit. So, you'd need to come up with a legal basis
to file a lawsuit in which this document would be relevant. And then you'd
have to serve a subpoena on Google.

You could potential have a lawyer serve a document preservation request on
Google before a lawsuit is filed. But I'm not optimistic they'd listen to it.

------
nsxwolf
You are in awfully good spirits for someone who may have lost $400k. In 1999 I
passed on an opportunity to buy a working Apple I for $10k.

~~~
lostethpresale
Although this fail is a bit expensive, I'm optimistic that more opportunities
will come.

~~~
max_
Yup, I bought a ETH & $6 late last year during the spam attacks and panick
sold at $15-$12 Early this year. Now the pice is $200+ per ETH

Now I am looking foward to RChain
[https://www.rchain.coop](https://www.rchain.coop)

~~~
DennisP
Interesting, I thought RChain was dead after they split from Synereo and I
didn't see any news on the rchain subreddit. Will definitely keep an eye on
this.

------
rrggrr
You are young. I promise you that life will present you with challenges and
rewards in the future that will make this seem like nothing. Put it behind
you, close the door, lock the door, and move on.

~~~
k33n
Hilarious par for the course HN response. Zero empathy for OP. "Oh you only
lost 400K. Since it didn't happen to me, it's not a problem."

~~~
rrggrr
Anything completely outside your control ought not to be viewed as a problem.
A circumstance, reality, boundary condition... yes. But not a problem.

~~~
pc86
Purchasing cryptocurrency, deleting the only copy of the wallet a year later,
then posting on a forum two years ago that "please give me back all this
money"?

If this was outside OP's control, what in the world is inside it?

~~~
rrggrr
Now that its gone, its gone, save this last ditch effort.

------
chinathrow
Did you ever use any other mail client to connect to Gmail?

If so, there might be a way, i.e. from an uncompressed mbox file or similar.

~~~
bengotow
This is definitely your best bet. Were you using an iPhone or an iPod Touch in
that time window? Maybe iTunes still has a backup of the device in its backups
folder? If you were using Mail.app, also check your Mac's Mail Downloads
folder. It's totally possible the attachment was downloaded and not deleted
when the email was. On my machine, that folder is full of ancient files for
some reason.

Also if you power on any old devices to look for the email, put them in
airplane mode ASAP!

------
leandot
Can't you contact the Ethereum Foundation, shouldn't they have the email in
the outgoing emails?

------
srge
What an interesting time to live in, when one can stock and even loose 400k in
one email / text file!

Good luck anyways, hope you find them back.

------
skdotdan
What about contacting Ethereum Foundation? They must have that mail.

~~~
singularity2001
Maybe they don't have the key but prove that they sent you a key. then maybe
your lawyer will be able to force a hardfork. In which case you'd get killed
by the community; which is worth it.

~~~
tradersam
That would be a dangerous precedent.

------
charlesdm
Even if you can find someone to do it, no Google engineer will be allowed to
retrieve this email and then take the bounty. But good luck, I do hope you can
get it recovered!

------
scottshamus
I talked with some people who work in Data Retention at Google and they said
this wasn't possible...

------
zitterbewegung
Have you tried gmail support already? If you haven't then I would say you
should try that first. Going on Social media usually is best after you have
exhausted this option. Also, offering compensation to Google employees is
probably frowned upon by Google.

~~~
apetresc
Does Gmail have "support"? I tried Googling it and every road just seems to
lead to a generic knowledge base page.

~~~
pawadu
gmail support = AI

security related support = same AI, just slower response

escalate to manager = talk to a different AI

write a salty article, get it published on NY Times = talk to a human

------
cybernano
Contact Ethereum Foundation on their website email, tell them your email
address it was sent to and get them to resend you your UTC.json file

~~~
aws_ls
Great suggestion. Also the OP may cross post this on
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/)

------
kierenj
So since there are many eyes here, I'd like to hijack a little. I have some
old wallet files from a year ago - armory_xxx_encrypt.wallet,
bitcoinwallet.dat, dogecoinwallet.dat and a key backup PFX. I haven't looked
at cryptocurrencies since, and so don't even know what tool I'd use to check
the value of these wallets. Can anyone advise?

~~~
hdhzy
Yes, send these files to me via email and I'll send you a personalized value
report, free of charge. (just kidding of course)

Probably it'd be best to install old versions of armory etc and export raw
keys, then import it to new wallet. Or if you just want to check then export
only public keys (addresses). You can check the amount on blockexplorer.

------
singularity2001
At least you should try to get your account number from the Ethereum Team.
Then monitor your account once a year or so. in the unlikely event that
someone (ex GHCS / google admin, ai, hacker, ...) ever sends money from your
account there are ways to get them.

------
lostmsu
Might be a stupid question, but if you have any hardware from between that
moment and the moment when you removed the email, which run Outlook or any
other program, that makes local copies of files, you can try to disable its
connectivity and get wallet from it.

------
tluyben2
I did Ethereum development for a Dutch city over a year ago and because of
that (and the low price) I had a lot of Ethereum. When the project was done, I
removed the VM I was working in. Shit happens.

------
y0y
This was so painful to read. I mean.. just.. ouch! I really hope you find a
way to get it back. Some lessons in life are really valuable even when they
sting. This one is just kind of cruel, ha.

~~~
ryanSrich
Don't go roamimg through old bitcoin threads on Reddit then.

You'll find grave yards of people that panick sold during the Mt Gox meltdown.
There was this one guy who dropped his entire life savings on bitcoin when it
was $850 and then sold at $350. I think the math turned out to be in the
multiple millions had he held the same amount today.

------
pat_space
Good luck, I will be following this story closely.

------
cybernano
Contact the ethereum foundation through their website, give them your email
address and get them to resend your utc wallet to you?

------
goodroot
That's hilarious! I did something similar. No idea where that massive chunk of
ETH went to. C'est la vie!

~~~
bhouston
Should not ETH have a record of your purchase email and amount? It likely is
recoverable in some fashion.

~~~
Grangar
The way I understand it is that the purchase email contained the keys to the
wallet. It'd be extremely irresponsible if they kept that.

------
cyptus
give [http://ccm.net/forum/affich-676377-how-to-get-trash-
deleted-...](http://ccm.net/forum/affich-676377-how-to-get-trash-deleted-
emails-from-gmail#4) a try

------
lostethpresale
If somebody could edit the spacing that would be great as well.

------
malchow
You may wish to state that you can (or can't) prove that the Gmail account is
yours, and that you opened the Gmail account personally. I believe Gmail
provides a discrete set of one-time keys upon account generation.

~~~
apetresc
I don't think you read the post. He has access to his account, he's looking
for an e-mail he deleted 2 years ago.

~~~
droithomme
> He has access to his account

Well, he has access to _an_ account in which he believes an email with
valuable information was once deleted by the owner of the account. Whether
this is one person or two is not determined.

~~~
lostethpresale
I'm sure my login history + 2 factor + geographical location + personal
information inside would be enough to establish me as the owner.

~~~
droithomme
Hopefully there is more of a solid track record than your brand new account
here that you created exactly 5 minutes before posting this thread.

The advice in this thread is good. It's certainly true many Google employees
read this forum and so this is a convenient place to find them for private
work without creating a electronic record trail on Google's own servers.
However, doing an end run around Google in order to find an employee there
willing to violate their employment agreement and possibly commit crimes
because of an offer of large financial compensation is not an appropriate use
of this discussion forum.

------
hackinthebochs
Contacting ethereum foundation is your best bet.

------
swipecity
Good luck, and keep us posted :)

------
triniman
This literally depresses me.

------
JJarrard
lost 1 bitcoin when Cryptsy went under, I thought I was unlucky..

