Bitcoin has been all the rage in 2017. With coin prices surging past $15,000 in the last week, a newly minted generation of crypto-millionaires has been born.

While many are celebrating this historic price surge, a recent study indicates that nearly 3.8 million bitcoins (worth nearly $50 billion) are lost and will likely never be found. This means a ton of people lost their virtual fortune before they could collect, and that billions are just sitting out there — lost because of a forgotten password or accidentally discarded flash drive. Since we keep hearing about these ‘crazy’ stories of misplaced Bitcoin fortunes, we decided to compile the accounts of the poor souls brave enough to come forward so far.

Here are some of the craziest Bitcoin fails to date.

Man Throws Away Bitcoin Fortune, Now Searching In Landfill

James Howells, a British IT professional, utilized crypto-mining hardware to amass 7,500 BTC in 2009 before his (reasonably) annoyed girlfriend made him stop. At that time, he decided to store his cold wallet hard drive in a dresser, where it collected dust for three years before he simply threw it in the trash.

A recent report tells the story of Howell and his current plight to find his lost fortune by digging through various trash dumps.

His bitcoins are currently worth nearly $100 million.

Gizmodo Editor Loses 1,400 BTC After Breakup

Campbell Simpson, editor of Gizmodo Australia, purchased 1,400 bitcoins in 2010 when it cost a mere $0.015 per coin. He decided to store his coins on a cold wallet hard drive, which shared space with pirated music and photos of his friends.

When Simpson broke up with his girlfriend, he made the executive decision to throw out this hard drive, stating “I didn’t need, or care about, anything on it.”

Upon publishing the story of the millions he missed out on, he has received suggestions from friends and strangers alike on how to go about retrieving this hard drive from the landfill. However, Simpson seems content enough to leave it lost on the ether.

https://twitter.com/csimps0n/status/866824313361453057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gizmodo.com.au%2F2017%2F05%2Fi-threw-away-4-8-million-in-bitcoin%2F

Man Buys Two Pizzas for 10,000 BTC in 2010

A man by the name of Laszlo Hanyecz famously made the first documented purchase of a good with bitcoin when he bought two Domino’s pizzas from jercos for 10,000 BTC. The bitcoins were quoted at $41 at the time of the offer.

10,000 bitcoins are currently worth $162 million.

Here is the original thread. Oops.

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