Buddy was a real dog. The record proves it.
The inscription is eight words. Behind it is a real dog, a woman named Alexandra, an old Bitcoin account and a fight to keep Buddy alive.
Sometimes the most valuable discoveries are not new.
They are simply forgotten.
- CHAPTER 01MAY & JUNE 2011
The Bitcoin story begins
Alexandra was known in the early Bitcoin community as “icicle”. In May and June 2011, she sent £500 to Britcoin, the exchange that would later become Intersango, and bought 51 BTC and one partial Bitcoin.
Those Bitcoins sat in her Intersango account. Two years later, Buddy would give them a purpose she could never have imagined.
- USER
- icicle
- ASSET
- 51 BTC
- EXCHANGE
- Britcoin / Intersango
- YEAR
- 2011
- CHAPTER 02EARLY 2013
The first lockout
Early in 2013, Alexandra lost access to her Intersango account and spent weeks trying to regain it. The fight reached Bitcointalk in March. She eventually got back in.
It took three months.
“It took me three months to get back in.”
— Alexandra BITCOINTALK RECEIPT
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=159071.0 - CHAPTER 03JUNE 9, 2013
Then she saw Buddy
Buddy was found wandering beside a highway in rural Georgia. A woman named Christy took him in. Nobody knew exactly how old he was. Nobody appeared to be looking for him.
The day after Alexandra’s elderly dog died, she saw Buddy’s photograph online. She knew almost nothing about him, but she knew she wanted him.
Buddy had severe congenital subaortic stenosis — a narrowing below the valve where blood leaves the heart, forcing it to work far harder than it should.
“We could have had a fit dog. We chose that one because I knew there was a new operation that could fix him, and I knew no-one else was going to rescue him and spend all that money, and I knew that I had a small fortune in bitcoins I could use to do it.”
— Alexandra, Bitcointalk, October 2013 - CHAPTER 04OCTOBER 2013
Buddy and Bitcoin collide
One weekend, one of Alexandra’s children found Buddy collapsed and unresponsive in the garden. Alexandra revived him and got him to a vet. If Buddy was going to have the operation, it needed to happen within days.
She had the money. It was sitting in her Intersango account.
On October 22, 2013, she was locked out for the second time. This time it was never resolved.
“A dog with a severe subaortic stenosis needs an operation.”
— Alexandra, Bitcointalk, October 23, 2013 She sent her passport for verification, appealed publicly and filed a police report. None of it worked.
The coins have never been returned.
BITCOINTALK RECEIPTS
Buddy wants his Bitcoins.
October 25, 2013 — the original public plea.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=317729.msg3407040
The original plea, still preserved.
The account lockout. The operation. The fight to save Buddy.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=317729.0 - CHAPTER 05THE YEAR IN BETWEEN
She became Buddy’s researcher too
The operation was the fix. The challenge was keeping Buddy well enough to survive the wait for it.
Alexandra worked through medical literature, logged Buddy’s heart rate against food and exercise, and tracked every change she made. Her aim was simple: keep his heart stable long enough to reach surgery.
“I had kept him alive by doing PhD level research — every paper possibly relevant, every signaling cascade we knew about explored.”
— Alexandra “I moved heaven and earth to save that dog. Three times. It’s quite a story.”
— Alexandra - CHAPTER 06MAY 9, 2014
Someone in Bitcoin was still thinking about Buddy
The story was public. Early Bitcoin users could read about the sick dog, the lost coins and the woman refusing to give up.
Then, on May 9, 2014, somebody wrote eight words permanently into block 299,825:
BLOCK 299,825
MAY 09, 2014
OP_RETURN CONFIRMED
“BUDDY IS THE BEST DOG IN THE WORLD.”
The Bitcointalk thread was still receiving replies on May 8 and 9, 2014 — the same window in which this inscription was mined.
- CHAPTER 07SEPTEMBER–NOVEMBER 2014
Buddy made it
By August 2014, a new scan was good enough to reopen the surgical question. They travelled for assessment. The scan was expected to take thirty minutes. It took ninety.
For a moment, it looked like they might be too late. Then they saw that Buddy’s heart was still pumping a normal amount of blood.
He was still a candidate.
“Buddy had his op. He is doing well... he came through safely.”
— Alexandra, November 12, 2014
THE BITCOINS NEVER CAME BACK.
BUDDY DID.
