So I took my mom to the yard sales last Saturday and came across this Android phone. The seller was an old man (about 65ish years old I'm guessing). I asked him what was wrong with the phone and he said nothing but that it belonged to his son who unfortunately passed away.
I turned it on to make sure it worked and that it did not have a screen lock, it did not, he wanted $25 for it. Which seemed Fair since it's from 2015-2016.
Coming home with plans to factory reset it and keep it as a back up in the event of my current phone breaking, I turn it back on and couldn't help myself from going through the apps before a reset and that's when I notice that there's a Bitcoin wallet, I open it and after a while of it "catching up with the network" it shows 26.86498 bitcoins.
My heart started pounding. My hands shaking. Adrenaline is still rushing through my body. I sent about $500 of Bitcoin to my Coinbase wallet to make sure this was all legit and was able to sell and instantly PayPal my funds.
Now my question and concern is , do I legally own these? Can I run into any legal trouble? And how do I go about paying taxes on this if I get to keep them?
Also is coinbase the best place to convert these to cash? Or what would be a better option? I'm sure my account will get either flagged or I will not be able to sell after a certain amount and I don't want to have to run into that problem. This is about a million dollars at the current price so how much is Uncle Sam cut ?
With the current price I don't think it's a good time to sell so Im transferring the rest into my hardware wallet that I bought and this will be kept in a safety deposit box.
I'm not looking for judgment or what to do morally , I'm currently unemployed and live in the shittiest part of town, no car and have debt out the wazooo. I just want to know where I stand legally.
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