The torture of losing your coins

Being a millionaire but not being able to access the money must be torture.

Chainalysis tracks the movement of Bitcoins in and out of wallets world-wide, estimates that as much of 3.8 million Bitcoins are lost. That's much as 23% of the outstanding supply, or $63 billion at today's prices.

Compare that with roughly $58 billion that's unclaimed in the US banking system.

Creating the coin and then losing it all would be even more agonizing.

Chainalysis counts the 1 million coins that belong to Satoshi Nakamoto as lost. They've never moved.

The WSJ writes about all the lost Bitcoin and notes that there is a hypnotist in South Carolina who offers to help people remember passwords. He charges 1 Bitcoin plus 5% of the bounty for his services.

There is James Howells, an IT worker in Wales who threw away a harddrive with 7500 Bitcoin and is trying to excavate the landfill to get his $120m worth of coin.

"It's a little like looking at your bank account containing millions of dollars but not being able to spend it."

So if you've missed out on the mania, take solace in knowing that it's better to have never participated than to be an extremely frustrated millionaire.

Here's a story on Reddit to give you an idea of how much it stings:

A few years ago... well, I can tell you exactly when it was - it was right around the time the Canucks went to the finals against Boston... the Spring/Summer of 2011.

Up to then, I'd been screwing around with Bitcoins just for fun... they weren't worth much, but it was fun mining them and sending them back and forth with friends and whatever. I slowly built my stash, and I mention the Canucks because their jersey numbers were the reference points we'd use... "How many Bitcoins you got?" "Bieksa! (3)" Well... I grew it to a Tanner Glass and by March I had a Daniel (22) and I was pleased for no real reason, because they still weren't worth much, when I'd gotten my Henrik stash together. By the time the last game had been played and the riots had subsided, I was up to "Yann Sauve". I'm sure nobody remembers that guy, but I do... and I certainly remember his jersey number... 47. That's where I stopped, because in September I went back to school, bought a new computer, packed up that old PC and dumped it in my parents' garage.

Fast forward several years when we started hearing about Bitcoins again, when they went above $100. Holy shit I thought, I have close to 5 grand sitting in that garage, better go get it. But I didn't, and by the time I did, my parents had cleared the garage of old crap, and along went that PC. Piss me off, but whatever. It was around $8,000 worth at the time which is a lot, but not the end of the world. But I've been watching these mother***ing Bitcoins just go up and up in value, and it's killing me. When they crossed $1,000, meaning I'd junked $47,000, it started affecting me. I'm trying to just let go of it, but I can't. The fact I'm writing this is ample evidence that this is tearing me up. And if you keep an eye on this sort of thing, you'll know that Bitcoins today are worth over $7,000 each. That's $329,000 which, I don't know about you, but I could certainly use.

I look around my shitty $800/mo "suite" and the drafty windows and crappy heating that will keep me cold for the next 6 months... and I admit it, I'm crying because I just can't ****ing let go of this."

That would be worth $785,000 today.