A story has been making its rounds through the internet about a guy, reddit user Bitcoinsignguy, who raised a sign while ESPN was broadcasting a college game between the Auburn Tigers and the Alabama Crimson Tide asking his mom to send more Bitcoin. The Bitcoin community responded by sending $26,000 to the bitcoin wallet QR code on the sign.
Soon after Bitcoinsignguy claimed he made the sign and posted a selfie on twitter with the infamous sign in hand.
Here’s the famous sign! pic.twitter.com/y6CKY4Qbyc
— Auburn Fan (@AUstraingauge) December 3, 2013
Some reddit users questioned whether Bitcoinsignguy was actually the person who held the sign. He responded by signing a message using the Public Address he had. Only someone who owns both private and public keys could sign with their bitcoin address. I used the Bitcoin wallet software, MultiBit, to verify his signed message.
Here’s the signature:
—–BEGIN BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE—– reddit Bitcoinsignguy twitter AUstraingauge —–BEGIN SIGNATURE—– 1HiMoMgBaAikFHgAt3M4YJtetp4HrnsiXu G79v2KMLGRKG6JYwjfi5dryY2uikvtAC2asrC20vKHkNfeaunucUMlkbGV+6CGTDOcbmMVt8tQa4uevw+5bbaKk= —–END BITCOIN SIGNED MESSAGE—–
Here’s how I verified the message was signed with the Bitcoinsignguy’s address
1. I opened Multibit and selected ‘tools’ then ‘Verify Message’ to verify the message.
2. I follow the instructions and Multibit confirms the message contents were written by the person holding the private keys of the Bitcoin address, 1HiMoMgBaAikFHgAt3M4YJtetp4HrnsiXu.
When he only had 2.2 coins, he pledged them to Sean’s Outpost. After 21 or so Bitcoins rolled in, he called Jason King and confirmed that he would send all the funds to Sean’s Outpost after taxes and a church donation was taken into account.
Jason King, founder of Sean’s Outpost, posted the following on reddit:
The story doesn’t stop here. He ended up commenting on a post Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger placed on reddit today offering the Bitcoin community’s support if the governor needed to raise Bitcoins for a fundraiser.
Well Bitcoinsignguy, keep doing what you are doing!