OffSpec

Four years ago I went on a wild goose chase to unlock millions of dollars stuck in a Trezor hardware wallet.

That chase got… weird.

At one point I was considering flying to Switzerland to access a secret lab. Another plan involved smuggling myself across a locked-down Europe during COVID. There was even a moment where I half-joked (half-serious) about using hallucinogens to help my friend recover his lost memory so he can remember a 4-digit password.

It didn’t look like a business. It looked like a bad (or actually excellent) movie script.

But it led me to Joe Grand, a brilliant engineer who once testified before the Senate that he could take down the internet in 30 minutes. He saw paths where others saw dead ends.

We took our shot.

And somehow, it worked. The coins were recovered. #FreeTheta, we said!

That could have been the end. Cool story, move on.

Instead, we leaned in and built a company together called OffSpec.

Our thinking was simple: there have to be more people out there in the same position.

We were right.

Since then, we’ve identified roughly $75M worth of crypto that people thought was gone forever. Every case is different, but the reaction never is. Relief. Shock. Sometimes something that genuinely changes the course of someone’s life.

What I didn’t fully appreciate at the beginning was the ripple effect.

One decision…a wild goose chase…turned into:
– a company
– millions of dollars back in people’s hands
– that money flowing back into families, businesses, and new opportunities
– and in some cases, completely altering someone’s trajectory in life…with money, hope or closure.

And yeah… that feels really good.

It’s a reminder that curiosity and optimism are underrated forces.

You don’t always need a master plan. Sometimes a wild goose chase, with an open mind, is good enough.

Most things don’t work like that.

But every once in a while, something does.

Videos below

Part One

Part Two