Later I got a cable for it and plugged it into my laptop, but as soon as it received power, it started to smoke, so I unplugged it immediately. I haven’t touched it since.
Well done for providing this essential bit of information but nobody is going
to touch that...
Starting price is $500,000 — this is the minimum. eBay doesn't allow me to set a higher starting bid. If the data can be recovered, I'm asking for a 10–20% share based on further agreement
...especially not for $500,000 and not even for $500.00
What did you save onto an MP4 player? The wallet.dat? The seed phrase? And why did you do that on an MP4 player? How about providing any kind of proof. Pictures of the MP4 player, proof of purchase, bank statements, etc.
To be fair, I believe this to be a scam. Nobody would be dumb enough to pay you $500k for a potential chance of recovering the BTC from the flash memory.
This is not a scam. I can show pictures if needed – I’m new to this platform, and everything I wrote is the truth. I have no intention of deceiving anyone.
Pictures will definitely be needed to lift the potential change of selling this from Zero
My suggestion - Offer it to a person who can fix it and if recovers anything split it 50/50. - Good luck
This is probably the best route to take. There is a bit of risk for you, just the same
as you are asking a potential buyer to take on the risk of a.) it not being a scam and
b.) being able to fix and retrieve