What IF? Loosing Millions Accidentally

We’ve reported on a “Blockchain Madness Week” two weeks ago. What happened after was neither expected, nor did it happen before. A spike in value, even though the trend was positive, was usual met with a downwards correction. Not in the last two weeks. With major news of partnerships, capital flooding the markets, wall street acceptance it seems that trading cryptocurrencies now becomes mainstream.

Events happening in the crypto-sphere explain the sudden raise in value. Ethereum managed to increase their speed. For the first time the platform had a stable level of 10 tx/s for an entire day. It’s share therefor reached a new all time high of $750.
IOTA made it’s rounds with its alleged partnership with Microsoft. This promptly forced the software giant to deny that statement which corrected IOTA’s value.
And of course the major news on the wall street. On sunday trading futures was made possible. For the first time investors can trade bitcoin with traditional means.

Coinbase reported more than 100.000 new wallets per day. It seems everyone wants a piece of the growing pie. The numbers of television reports, so called blockchain experts and blogs increase. At the same time people who once thought bitcoin to be a dead end appear back on the map.

James Howells, an IT Expert from Wales, had made a terrible experience like you’ve heard many times before. Back in 2009 he offered his computer for mining and in return got 7500 bitcoins. Todays market value $131 million. Back then it was worth nothing and he made the fatal mistake of throwing it away. He even went down to the landfill:”I had a word with one of the guys down there, explained the situation. And he actually took me out in his truck to where the landfill site is, the current ditch they’re working on. It’s about the size of a football field, and he said something from three or four months ago would be about three or four feet down.”

The same happened to Campbell Simpson editor of Gizmodo Australia. Once buying 1400 bitcoin for $25 his ROI would have been a solid 99,394,496%. Sounds like a great investment. ‘This is probably one of the stupidest things, in hindsight, that I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a lot of stupid things a lot of times,’ Mr Simpson said. ‘I could have bought a house. In Sydney. At Sydney prices. I could have moved around the world or bought a goddamn yacht or something,’

Loosing your bitcoin is not an uncommon thing. A study done by Chainalysis claims that nearly 4 million bitcoins are out of circulation. At the current number of supply, that is 1/4 of coins in circulation. Once you’ve lost your private key thats it. No more bitcoin. And since there is no bank behind it, there is almost no way to recover it. This only shows us that bitcoin is still a first version of what later can become a more solid digital currency.