Kevin Durant recovers access to his Bitcoin portfolio after 10 years of inactivity

Kevin Durant, double NBA champion and recognized investor, has just recovered access to a Bitcoin portfolio that has been inactive for almost ten years. Created in 2016, at a time when the BTC was exchanging around 600 dollars, this forgotten wallet illustrates the decisive role of time in the enhancement of cryptos. Its reactivation reveals a spectacular added value: a multiplication by 195 of the initial bet.

Kevin Durant finds access to his Wallet Bitcoin after 10 years of inactivity

While Fidelity predicts that more than 40 % of bitcoins will soon be inaccessible, Rich Kleiman, partner and longtime friend of Kevin Durant, during a speaking at the CNBC Game Plan Conference in Los Angeles, revealed the origins of their first foray into the world of cryptos.

He explains that it all started in 2016, during a birthday party organized by the famous venture capital Ben Horowitz. “” That evening, everyone was talking about Bitcoin. We decided to open an account the next day in Coinbase“, has declared Kleiman.

What they thought was a simple essay turned into one of the most lucrative bets of their career outside field.

During then bought his first bitcoins at a price of around $ 600 per unit. However, after this purchase, he will lose access to his Coinbase account for almost ten years, failing to be able to find his identifiers. It was not until September 2025 that he managed, thanks to the Coinbase support, to recover access to his wallet. A recovery publicly confirmed by Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase: “Everything is settled, the account has been recovered!” »» .

Here are the key facts to remember:

• The date of entry into the Bitcoin market: 2016, after an influential evening in Californian tech circles;
• The estimated BTC purchase price at the time: around $ 600;
• The duration of inactivity of the Coinbase account: almost 10 years;
• Estimated yield: +195xOn the initial value, with a BTC now close to $ 117,000.

This involuntary forgetfulness, apparently harmless, had a paradoxical consequence. The Bitcoins of Dancus, which remained intact despite the market fluctuations, escaped any temptation to sell in moments of panic or euphoria. According to Kleiman, it may have been an unexpected advantage:“Being blocked may have prevented us from selling too early”he joked on stage.

A much deeper relationship with Coinbase and the Crypto ecosystem

Beyond this spectacular episode, Kevin's story during the cryptos goes beyond this anecdote.

In 2017, only one year after his first exhibition to Bitcoin, Durant and Rich Kleiman invest via their Thirty Five Ventures fund in Coinbase, thus becoming early institutional investors of the platform.

In 2021, during reinforcing this relationship further strengthening by becoming an official ambassador of the brand, participating in several promotional campaigns for the platform. This much more strategic involvement testifies to a desire to anchor in the long-term digital economy, far beyond the simple customer status.

Such positioning is not isolated in the American sports landscape. Tristan Thompson has just launched a web 3 platform for his fans, while Spencer Dinwiddie had explored the tokenization of his NBA contract from 2020.

During its part, for its part, seems to embody a generation of entrepreneurs athletes who use their notoriety to invest in emerging technologies. Thus, this return of Wallet who fell into oblivion, although spectacular, thus crown a discreet, but coherent commitment, built on several years of active participation in the crypto universe.

The example of Durant recalls the importance of the secure conservation of identifiers and the central role that exchanges can play in the management of these dormant assets. In the future, this episode could encourage platforms to strengthen their recovery solutions, while reminding new investors the importance of good conservation practices, especially since the quantum threat is more pressing.