Possible to recover bitcoins from changetip?
May 6, 2021 4:51 PM Subscribe
Is it possible to recover bitcoins that I was "tipped" on Reddit through changetip.com several years ago?
About 6 years ago, I was given a bitcoin tip for a comment I made on Reddit. The tip was made through /r/changetip and a website called www.changetip.com. At the time, the bits I received were valued at $1. They have since risen in value to about $150 USD. However, the changetip.com website seems to have shut down a few years ago. I'm just wondering - is there any way at all for me to recover the bitcoins? Or are they gone forever? My suspicion is that they're unrecoverable, but I wanted to check since $150 is a non-trivial amount of money to me.
About 6 years ago, I was given a bitcoin tip for a comment I made on Reddit. The tip was made through /r/changetip and a website called www.changetip.com. At the time, the bits I received were valued at $1. They have since risen in value to about $150 USD. However, the changetip.com website seems to have shut down a few years ago. I'm just wondering - is there any way at all for me to recover the bitcoins? Or are they gone forever? My suspicion is that they're unrecoverable, but I wanted to check since $150 is a non-trivial amount of money to me.
If it is gone, and I believe that dmd is correct, who has it? Did it stay in the giver's wallet or did changetip somehow grab it?
posted by AugustWest at 10:25 PM on May 6, 2021
posted by AugustWest at 10:25 PM on May 6, 2021
Actually, according to this old thread on Reddit What is ChangeTip and how does it work?, if you didn't have an account setup with ChangeTip then you would have been asked to do so, otherwise
Many, if not most bitcoin services/exchanges were scams at the start. Not saying that ChangeTip was one (I never heard of it before today) but whether it's a real site or a scam it's not your bitcoin if someone else is holding it for you, it's theirs.
So depending on whether you created an account the answer is
[no account] the tip was returned after 15 days
[account] the tip stayed on ChangeTips books until they shut down in late 2016.
If ChangeTip was being a responsible bank (which as far as I can tell no bitcoin service ever has) they would have sold your bitcoin for cash, then submitted that cash to the relevant agency for your jurisdiction that deals with unclaimed funds, which you can search for here: https://www.missingmoney.com/en/. That's an absolutely legit site that just happens to look really fake, I promise. However, that would require they actually have your name, and I'm not sure if that was required for ChangeTip.
posted by tiamat at 6:43 AM on May 7, 2021
If the tippee has not yet connected to ChangeTip, then the tippee is sent a private message with information on how to collect their tip, and tip will be listed as 'Out for Delivery' while the tippee gets connected. If the tippee does not collect the tip, then it is refunded to the tipper automatically after 15 days.That thread also mentions that ChangeTip used "free off-chain transaction[s]" which suggests, as dmd said, they kept all the money in a big pile with their own ledger (or post-it note) saying how much 'belonged' to any given user.
Many, if not most bitcoin services/exchanges were scams at the start. Not saying that ChangeTip was one (I never heard of it before today) but whether it's a real site or a scam it's not your bitcoin if someone else is holding it for you, it's theirs.
So depending on whether you created an account the answer is
[no account] the tip was returned after 15 days
[account] the tip stayed on ChangeTips books until they shut down in late 2016.
If ChangeTip was being a responsible bank (which as far as I can tell no bitcoin service ever has) they would have sold your bitcoin for cash, then submitted that cash to the relevant agency for your jurisdiction that deals with unclaimed funds, which you can search for here: https://www.missingmoney.com/en/. That's an absolutely legit site that just happens to look really fake, I promise. However, that would require they actually have your name, and I'm not sure if that was required for ChangeTip.
posted by tiamat at 6:43 AM on May 7, 2021
Response by poster: Thanks all. I realized it was a long shot, but just wanted to be sure. I did set up a ChangeTip account on their website, but it looks like I'm still out of luck. Couldn't find anything on missingmoney.com unfortunately.
posted by NoneOfTheAbove at 5:41 PM on May 10, 2021
posted by NoneOfTheAbove at 5:41 PM on May 10, 2021
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It was never actually yours unless it was in your bitcoin wallet, so, no, it's gone. Sorry.
posted by dmd at 5:27 PM on May 6, 2021