So, if you know all the stories about people losing their crypto, you can just skip to the last sentence and get the point I am making. If you haven’t heard them, sit back and enjoy a little schadenfreude.
- James Howell loses 7,500 Bitcoin. Mr. Howell started mining BTC in 2009 and by 2013, had mined over 7500 coins. In 2013, he stopped and sold his computer, but he did save the hard drive, only to throw out later that year by accident. Due to the environmental impact, the landfill where it was tossed will not allow any searches.
- Mark Frauenfelder bought his 7.4 BTC in 2016 for 3000 dollars and wrote his keys on an orange sheet of paper and stuck it under his pillow before leaving for an extended trip with his wife. While gone, the cleaning service threw the piece of paper away not realizing it was important.
- Matthew Mellon died unexpectedly in 2018 and was thought to have amassed over 500 million in crypto. He stored his keys in cold wallets in various locations around the United States and never told anyone where they were. At least in this example, he doesn’t miss them, himself.
- Just this year, Stefan Thomas lost his password and was unable to access 220 million dollar’s worth of crypto. His wallet allowed for ten chances to guess the password, and after using 8 was quoted as saying, "I would just lay in bed and think about it: Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn't work, and I would be desperate again."
- It is estimated that 20 percent of BTC is lost. Somewhere around 140 billion dollars.
Now, if you follow a lot of what I write about, you know I focus a lot on the government looking to insert itself into crypto. They are essentially saying they need to “protect” us when we get involved with crypto.
My one point, out of the stories above and of the thousands of people who have lost their crypto, I have yet to read a single story, see a post or blog, or anything else where a single one of them asked the government to help them get it back.
Thanks for reading.