How Wired magazine destroyed $100,000 worth of bitcoin

Wired's Louise Matsakis writes about how the publication collected nearly $100,000 in Bitcoin in 2013 after receiving a mining device, then quickly destroyed it.

Matsakis writes: “The Wired miner won the bitcoin lottery several times and mined just over 12 coins. The staff then had to figure out what to do with them. “We spent several weeks deciding what to do with bitcoin,” says Michael Calor, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine. “Some staffers argued that it should be donated or set aside for charity. Others argued that it should be destroyed. It was decided that the money should not just sit around because it might influence what the magazine writes about cryptocurrencies.”

“I said we needed to sell and donate the money, otherwise we would not be able to write objectively about bitcoin,” says Adam Rogers, deputy editor at Wired.

Eventually it was decided to destroy the private key that opens the Bitcoin wallet and allows funds to be spent.

“We thought about donating it to a journalistic institution or putting it aside for a scholarship. But we decided that if we got any benefit from it, it would influence the perception of our future articles about bitcoin,” says Calor. “So we just destroyed the key, knowing full well that it could end up costing six or seven figures.”

According to talkingbiznews