Nigerian Rocks Crypto World By Returning NGN 28.8 Mn Worth Of Bitcoin That Was Sent To Him In Error
Here’s the latest on today’s edition of “Wait, What?!”; A Nigerian man woke up one day to find that NGN 28.8 Mn (USD 80 K) worth of bitcoin had been erroneously transferred to his wallet. And he returned it!
After he received the erroneous transfer, the young man spent the next 72 hours tracking down the source of the transaction, got a hold of the person, and returned all the funds. Now, if that isn’t as close to saintly as one can get in this day and age, then we’ll probably never know what is.
?This Nigerian – @BitcoinKeith – received $80,000 worth of #Bitcoin by mistake. What he did with it might surprise you ?https://t.co/txPRBiB0TB pic.twitter.com/B2M69WBAQ3
— RFI English (@RFI_En) September 19, 2019
But that’s not the entire story — it also turns out that the actual owner of the bitcoin is a Nigerian politician who has chosen to remain anonymous. Now, isn’t that some story? Well, all of this did happen.
Radio France Internationale first broke the news of one Keith Mali Chung (possibly an Alias or probably not); a Nigerian based in the country’s capital, Abuja. According to the report, Chung woke up to find 7.8 BTC in his account. That’s equivalent to USD 80 K. And he knew absolutely nothing about it.
Final update:
In Africa, which Is where I am situated, 80% we transact Cryptos through WhatsApp escrows and someone who himself and I had business in the past made this huge mistake of sending 7.8BTC into my blockchain wallet. I spread the words round & he reached out.?
— Bitcoin Keith (The African Bitcoin Bull) (@BitcoinKeith) September 13, 2019
Unbelieving of his luck, Chung had a choice to make. Enjoy the perks of lots of virtually untraceable cash that you didn’t have to work for or find the owner and return it.
Where it would have been a lot easier to bask in the euphoria of being USD 80 K richer, Chung defied stereotypes by opting for the latter.
Haha!! pic.twitter.com/o8Azp0M8Ym
— Bitcoin Keith (The African Bitcoin Bull) (@BitcoinKeith) September 12, 2019
In the days that followed, he was seriously searching for the person who had mistakenly transferred the cryptocurrency to his wallet.
“I trade in bitcoin, but never such a high amount,” PM News quotes Chung as saying. “I knew it had to be a mistake so I posted an announcement via some WhatsApp groups to track down the owner.”
For three days, it was one WhatsApp broadcast after another, but no luck. No one had come forward with an authentic claim to the misplaced funds.
Chung then took to Twitter, tweeting about the development and getting a few retweets.
Please RT,
I received huge sum of BTC from an unknown sender and it’s definitely a mistake from someone I must have had transaction with before, Kindly DM me time of transaction, your adress and exact digits sent..
thank you. Kindly retweet— Bitcoin Keith (The African Bitcoin Bull) (@BitcoinKeith) September 12, 2019
Before long, someone reached out to him with the correct details of the transaction; ‘very unique details’ only known by whoever had initiated the transaction and whoever received. That was how he identified the person, after which he had the bitcoin returned.
And just when it seemed the story couldn’t get any juicier, word got out that the owner of the bitcoin was, in fact, a Nigerian politician. This caused another kind of uproar as many people began to rue what they thought was a missed opportunity to get one over some corrupt politicians in the country.
I am a blockchain expert and Bitcoin educator so If I’d love to keep it, I would have without traces but im building a name for myself n anyone who will bear my name in this life, $80k 30 million naira won’t do that, a global recognition of integrity will do much more than that
— Bitcoin Keith (The African Bitcoin Bull) (@BitcoinKeith) September 20, 2019
Nigeria is plagued by underhanded dealings among the political class, and consistently ranks among the lowest 20 percent on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.
In a country where corrupt officials have no qualms diverting state funds and enriching themselves with government money, it’s understandable why some people may be disturbed that Chung had returned money that may have been taken from the people anyway.
Buy Bitcoin
Keith Mali Chung #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/50uN3KBSJI
— Bitcoin Keith (The African Bitcoin Bull) (@BitcoinKeith) September 20, 2019
Chung is a digital currency enthusiast who travels around Nigeria giving free workshops about the potential of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In any case, he certainly did right by returning what was not his to keep.
Since Chung pulled off the remarkable show of honesty, he’s been the talk of the crypto world and beyond both locally and internationally.
There’s been a series of interviews and features in a number of publications across the globe including Cointelegraph and RFI.
