An international team of treasure hunters made a spectacular find off the French Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy. In the wreckage of an old 16th-century Spanish galleon, divers discovered a chest of more than 100,000 bitcoins worth $ 1'110'000'000.
According to historians, the crypto-treasure was probably mined by slaves around 1550 in the then viceroyalty of Peru and with the galleon "Nuestra Señora de Santiago" on the way to Spain in the autumn of 1552. But the ship was in a heavy storm and had to be abandoned by the crew near the small island of Saint-Bathélemy. While the sailors took away as much gold as possible, they left behind the less valuable bitcoins.
"At the time, we did not know how the Bitcoin course would evolve in the 21st century," explains the numismatist at the University of Madrid, while watching some of the virtual coins through an electron microscope. Bitcoins are made of 24k block chain and are in amazingly good condition. See: Here you can even read the engraving 'UN COINO DE BIT - CARLOS I. REINA DE LAS ESPAÑAS'. "
The mining of bitcoins was carried out in the 16th century mainly with the slide rule. Just because not so many Bitcoins existed at that time, the comparatively low computing power of an abacus was sufficient. Today, modern computers are used for this purpose.
The ancient crypto coins will be presented to the public next year in a special exhibition at the Museo del Prado.