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

166 pointsby 2h ago
54 comments
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

1h agoHN ↗

I imagine they might wait, to make sure it’s legally obtained Bitcoin.

57m agoHN ↗

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!

52m agoHN ↗

It's one year, unless something changed recently.

36m agoHN ↗

One year yes, and politics wants to change it..

42m agoHN ↗

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

6m agoHN ↗

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

Well that's really funny. Because the 7 years are about tax liabilities not the speed of bitcoin transactions.

So maybe you made a statement about crypto advocates here...

1h agoHN ↗

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.

1h agoHN ↗

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.

52m agoHN ↗

Well, that’s what people have said all the way to $70k+ price.

36m agoHN ↗

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.

38m agoHN ↗

Isn't that a good thing? The main argument I've heard against using bitcoin as currency is that it's too volatile.

11m agoHN ↗

But the volatility hasn’t gone away. Compared to previous periods of broader interest in it (rife with the awful FOMO habits of people) sure it’s not as bad, but it still fluctuates wildly and without warning. In the past 12mo it has gone as high as 120k and as low as 60k, currently around 76k. You cannot reasonably use a currency like that. Your wealth can’t be doubling or halving over months with 10-20pt swings over days being a common occurrence. How much mental energy and planning would have to go into timing any and all purchases and earning?

Better odds than a casino, but still basically a casino.

10m agoHN ↗

It would be, except when the primary value proposition is capturing the upside of that volatility. In the case of BTC a sustained lack of volatility is going to create significant downward pricing pressure. At some point that will trigger a run and as stakeholders have condensed the rut will get deeper and deeper as the upside of the volatility swings continually lower.

10m agoHN ↗

Depends on the actor.

From western perspective, maybe, but there are many people in the world who don't trust neither their government, nor western ones: Iranians, Russians, some Chinese, etc.

BTC is a nice safe place for money, which can't be touched by neither of state adversaries. Underperforming some other asset classes is totally acceptable, when your expectation for the brokerage account is effectively zero after arrest/freeze/sanctions.

37m agoHN ↗

The log scale is awfully misleading, especially since money doesn't really work like that.

8m agoHN ↗

Anything but a log scale would be misleading. When showing long term growth of something that has grown so drastically, it is imperative to use a log scale so that 10% gains look consistent over time. Especially in finance.

27m agoHN ↗

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.

12m agoHN ↗

Also, I gotta say I do not think Bitcoin is a bubble or whatever (IMO a real value there)

It's worth saying something with real value can still have a bubble - both bicycles and the internet were huge market bubbles at one time, but they're also undeniably valuable.

26m agoHN ↗

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.

32m agoHN ↗

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

1h agoHN ↗

Really hope so too. Would be devastating

23m agoHN ↗

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.

9m agoHN ↗

Seems pretty silly to build in deflation into a currency. It incentivises putting your money in a mattress for 100 years.

7m agoHN ↗

I like the alternative even less, as it incentivises spending more than you would and taking on debt you don't really need.

6m agoHN ↗

It's not silly, it harnesses some of the mechanics behind ponzi schemes to encourage viral spread. Early entrants are incentivized to evangelize it to newer ones

1h agoHN ↗

The project no longer uses that Bitcoin wallet for bounties.

1h agoHN ↗

What does that mean for that donation, and why is the wallet still listed on the website?

48m agoHN ↗

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.

40m agoHN ↗

Bitcoin's supposed to be "liquid" but I'm wondering what happens when there's a forced liquidity event.

22m agoHN ↗

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.

1h agoHN ↗

Bitcoin really isn't money.

They should send it to a dead wallet instead.

1h agoHN ↗

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 :)

1h agoHN ↗

To never have experienced a usefulness of cryptocurrency is a privileged position to be in.

1h agoHN ↗

A dead wallet has better use for Bitcoin though.

We don't know where the Bitcoin has come from, so it needs to go through extensive anti money laundering checks.

Save the hassle of all of that taxes, accountancy and just send everything to a dead wallet.

44m agoHN ↗

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.

10m agoHN ↗

Nah, you would have a lot more to pay in taxes.

Might as well send it to a dead wallet, it's not real money anyway in many countries as legal tender.

1h agoHN ↗

Exactly this! It was rendered money by some minds.

1h agoHN ↗

Unlike that paper money. That paper money was created by the Gods!

51m agoHN ↗

This could become the premise of a near-cyberpunk heist movie..

46m agoHN ↗

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

10m agoHN ↗

Yeah, someone probably deposited an amount a long time ago and it's sat there earning interest.

23m agoHN ↗

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?

18m agoHN ↗

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

12m agoHN ↗

but what sort of people keep their bitcoins on the exchange ? the whole point is about not being seizable by dirty governments...