Bitcoin has created vast wealth for early investors, but thousands of coins are believed to be permanently inaccessible after owners lost devices, passwords or private keys.
The cryptocurrency was trading about 35% below its all-time high of just above $126,000, reached in October 2025. Even at lower levels, bitcoin has made fortunes for people who bought it in its early years. But some of the most extraordinary stories in the digital asset’s history involve money that was lost, misplaced or thrown away.
Bitcoin’s supply is capped at 21 million coins. Some of those already in circulation are effectively beyond reach and may never move again, despite being worth millions or even billions of dollars.
One of the most famous cases involves James Howells, a resident of Newport, Wales. Howells said he mined bitcoin in 2009 before throwing away a laptop hard drive while clearing his home.
The drive contained his private keys and was believed to hold between 7,500 and 8,000 BTC. Based on the prices cited in the report, that represents about $578m. Howells spent more than a decade seeking permission to excavate the landfill where he believed the hard drive had been taken, but never managed to recover it.
Lost passwords and corrupted wallets
Programmer Stefan Thomas stored the private key to a wallet containing 7,002 BTC on an encrypted IronKey USB drive. He subsequently lost the piece of paper containing the password needed to unlock it.
The bitcoin was valued at approximately $540m in the report. The device allows its owner 10 attempts to enter the correct password. Thomas had used eight attempts and was left with only two more. Reports said he stopped trying rather than risk permanently locking himself out.
Another wallet owner lost 9,000 BTC, worth about $694m, after continuing to use an old backup. According to a post on bitcointalk.org, the person restored an earlier copy of the wallet after making further transactions. The old wallet did not record newly created change addresses, leaving the coins visible on a blockchain explorer but impossible for the owner to retrieve.
A case described in Shehan’s Blog concerns a Missouri farmer named Samantha, who reportedly lost 100,000 BTC. At the exchange rates cited, the coins were worth $7.7bn.
Samantha said she received the bitcoin in 2010 as a large refund from a European veterinary medicine supplier. She had little understanding of how to manage the asset and later lost her keys in a phishing attack. Believing she was speaking to technical support, she handed over her private keys.
Coins thrown away with unwanted equipment
An Australian media and IT figure known as Simpson reportedly discarded about 1,400 BTC in 2017. He had acquired the cryptocurrency in 2010 after being paid in bitcoin for work, at a time when it was relatively unknown.
While clearing out his belongings, Simpson threw away “USB sticks, 3D glasses, USB cables, PC components. All that sort of literal junk. A pile of junk that went into a skip.” The hard drive containing his wallet was among the items. The coins were valued at about $107m in the report.
In another case, a Reddit user called Shotukan said he lost 533 BTC, worth roughly $41m. He had given a laptop containing his wallet to his brother years earlier after buying the bitcoin in 2010.
Shotukan’s brother died in 2019. When Shotukan later searched through his possessions, the relevant drive could not be found and was thought to have been discarded among a disorganised collection of belongings.
Barbadian entrepreneur Gabriel Abed also lost access to 800 BTC after a colleague accidentally reformatted his laptop. Abed had acquired the coins in 2011 and stored his private keys on the computer.
Reports said the 800 BTC formed only part of his overall holdings, which he had divided between several wallets as a security measure. Even so, those coins were valued at $64.76m using the exchange rates cited.
Ukrainian politician and Verkhovna Rada member Davyd Arakhamia was reported to have lost 400 BTC, worth about $32m. He accidentally encrypted a file containing his private keys, believing it was a movie file. Arakhamia had accepted cryptocurrency during its early years.
The cases illustrate one of the main risks of self-custody: the individual has complete control over the assets, but also bears full responsibility for passwords, storage and recovery. People can lose devices, forget credentials or make irreversible mistakes, while Bitcoin’s immutable blockchain offers no second chance.
The industry has made modest improvements to recovery options since many of these losses occurred, potentially making cryptocurrency safer for everyday users. Lost bitcoin can reduce the available supply and may support its value, but for the people who lost it, the financial cost remains enormous.
This week, the cryptocurrency community has also been discussing cybersecurity experts from Krebs on Security, including researcher and journalist Brian Krebs.
