I probably did not mention, but after 7+ years I do not remember my old password. Back in the day I did not use any password managers (I still keep my important passwords in my head, but before I kept them all), and remembering my Bitcointalk password was far from a high priority. Of course I could reset it because I have my old email (the one I said is almost full, because I have used it for years), but that is what I say would be shady. I doubt I would be allowed to stake a new BTC address under those conditions, people will (for good reason) assume I am a hacker and instantly give me negative feedback. In theory that should not matter much, but I care about my reputation and: 1. I would not like to see my old account with negative reputation unless it is actually hacked at some point and truly deserves it, 2. people could connect this account (tg9) to my old account (98789) from my X handle or a BTC address and quickly run to conclusions and say I am a scammer. That is what I think could happen, and why I have not reset my password.

Also, I said I wanted to have a fresh start because I want that any merit I get is deserved. I know that the current system is not perfect either and people can still merit bullshit and posts that contribute a lot may go unnoticed, but those are the current rules. Having a 7-year hiatus might also be a thing, especially since I cannot sign with my old staked address (though the merit part is the biggest part of my motivation to start over).

I do have access to those addresses (kind of). I said I could do something convoluted like recording my Coinbase account and showing that the addresses I used with 98789 are there (or simply the 1PUX one I have in my profile, which is the one I used the most and the one staked), but I may do something stupid and give away more information than necessary (I do not say I can share a screenshot because editing HTML is extremely easy, so a simple screenshot would not prove anything). The issue is that Coinbase removed the ability to sign messages a couple of years ago and from what I read googling, there is no way to get a signed message from them. I cannot either move bitcoin from those addresses because Coinbase centralizes all the bitcoin (or so I suppose, I remember checking my address on blockchain.info and it always had 0 balance and it was full of input and output transactions of about the same value) and if I send BTC from my account it will likely go out from a different address.

I considered four options: 1. not doing anything and simply use fresh addresses and accounts for everything associated to tg9, but, why would I do that if I am not a bad person trying to scam? 2. Posting in Timelord2067's thread, but I checked it and one of the latest comments said he had removed a post from a newbie and emphasized on reading the rules in the OP (plus, this is not an "investigation", this is why I keep talking about that other thread, I swear there was one where you could go and say "X and Y are my alts" and be transparent about it, maybe it was an earlier version of Timelord's thread?). 3. PMing someone reputed; at first I thought of Lauda, I remember he used to be a very successful scambuster, but looks like he left the forum; I even considered Timelord2067, but I thought he (or anyone, I guess) would perceive a message from a newbie account as suspicious and that would make things unnecessarily complicated (anecdotally, in a different forum, I once PMed all the moderators and I almost get a ban; people in DT are not moderators, but they may also frown upon unwanted/unrequested contacts). 4. post a thread in reputation, which is what I ended up doing, this way I could get an opinion from multiple people and be more transparent about everything. Maybe the decision I took was not the best, but that was my reasoning.

The neutral feedback from Timelord2067 is the kind of thing I wanted (though, that one shows under "untrusted feedback", what I wanted is that it shows as neutral but is more visible so people know that 98789 is me and/or that the account will not/should not be used anymore, I could also give 98789 "untrusted feedback" but that is ~meaningless, I never really cared too much about understanding trust on Bitcointalk, but I am confused). Of course I would still have to prove that I am indeed 98789, if anyone has an idea of how to do it without making things worse (resetting the password sounds like a bad idea to me for what I said in the first paragraph); if not possible, I guess the conditional neutral feedback from Timelord is fine for now and in the future I can reuse any of my old addresses (which would not prove anything, but why would I give bitcoin for free to a third person just to claim to be them?) and maybe that will give more credibility to my story (?). That may take a while or never happen, though, I am busier these days, bitcoin fees are way more expensive and not suitable for microtransactions and, my hourly fee is higher so I may be less competitive compared to the younger me behind 98789.

I still have access to my old Betcoin.ag account, which is called "98789". Maybe through it I can prove I am who I claim to be? Though, it seems they made some changes and messed things up: I recall I had ~10 mBTC (down from 25 mBTC I had got from referrals thanks to the signature campaign) and the other day I logged back in my balance was zero. I also checked under affiliate and I see that the referral link is different (it is now a random~ish number, before it was your user ID, but the URL shows the user ID and you can compare that one to the one in 98789's signature and see that they match; if this sounds reasonable I could record my screen on Betcoin.ag, clicking multiple pages and eventually visiting any page where the user ID is visible).

I am open to ideas if anyone has any (if resetting 98789's password is the way to go, I would at least like to read some sort of consensus that that won't cause additional "shadiness" to this process). Thank you to anyone commenting, especially the ones who are actually contributing (giving ideas and at least reading/paying attention to what I write).