Almost a decade after acquiring Bitcoin on Coinbase, NBA star Kevin Durant has successfully regained access to his assets following a completed account recovery.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced the news in an X post on Thursday evening, stating, “We got this fixed. Account recovery complete!”
Durant, a 15-time NBA All-Star who will play for the Houston Rockets this season, recounted his lost Bitcoin (BTC) experience on Tuesday at the annual Gameplan Summit in Santa Monica.
While joined by his agent, Rich Kleiman, Durant mentioned to host Andrew Ross Sorkin that he stumbled upon Bitcoin around 2014 or 2015 after watching YouTube videos, prompting him to give his agent “a little nudge.”
Kleiman recounted that shortly after, they called their business manager, who “shut it down.” However, about a year later, after hearing the term “Bitcoin” multiple times at a party by Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm a16z, they started investing the next day.
“And fortunately,” Kleiman added, “We’ve still been able to track down his Coinbase account info, so we’ve never sold anything, and his Bitcoin is just through the roof.”
Forgetting your Coinbase password results in account lockout, and without recovery details like two-factor authentication codes or your email, accessing stored crypto is impossible.
Neither Durant nor his agent, who were early investors in Coinbase through their joint venture Thirty Five Ventures, have revealed how much Bitcoin they bought at that time.
In 2016, Bitcoin’s price varied from roughly $400 at the year’s start to around $1,000 by the year’s end, based on data from CoinGecko. Since then, Bitcoin’s price has surged more than 11,470%, currently valued at $115,480 as of this writing.
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Durant’s account recovery generated responses from users experiencing similar issues, albeit with varied outcomes.
Some users lamented being locked out of their accounts for years without any recovery success. “You have thousands of people that are locked out of their accounts, Brian. The same people who your CS team sold out & gave their data away,” commented X user Erik Astramecki.
On Friday, Armstrong responded to user complaints by sharing a thread from one of the customer support team leaders outlining enhancements being implemented.
“We’re focusing on improving customer support — making products better so fewer people need help, and providing a quicker, higher quality experience when you do,” Armstrong stated.
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