Brute Force, Hypnosis, Rummaging Through Massive Landfills, All for Those Vanished Bitcoins...
Data shows that over 18.75 million Bitcoins have been mined, leaving less than 2.25 million Bitcoin remaining from the total cap of 21 million. However, not all of these mined Bitcoins are circulating in secondary markets. Glassnode data reveals that Bitcoins held for less than 6 months account for 31.78%, while approximately 10.31% of Bitcoins have remained unmoved for 5-10 years, and a striking 11.83% haven't moved in over 10 years.
These unmoved Bitcoins include those held long-term by believers, but also millions of Bitcoins that never see the light of day due to hardware failures, carelessness, deaths of holders, and other reasons. Behind every permanently lost Bitcoin lies a regrettable story, and as the coin price rises, these losses become increasingly lamentable.
Some who lost coins have long since "accepted their fate," others have been "blessed by fortune" and recovered what was lost, while others still desperately search for various methods, hoping for a miracle to recover private keys lost through moments of carelessness. Among them is the famously unlucky James Howells, who accidentally discarded a hard drive containing wallet private keys for 7,500 Bitcoins into the trash, missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth. The hard drive is now buried under tons of garbage at the Newport Waste Recovery Center, and the TV series "Silicon Valley" even filmed a storyline based on him. Eight years later, James Howells hasn't given up, and he has even secured funding from a hedge fund for a one-year landfill search plan.
Will James Howells recover his Bitcoin? We don't know yet, but today, let's take this opportunity to discuss those vanished Bitcoins.
Several Methods for Making Bitcoins Disappear
On July 9, news came that British man James Howells' one-year landfill search plan has secured funding from a hedge fund, which will receive a portion of the substantial funds. The reason for searching this 200-square-meter landfill containing 400,000 tons of garbage is that James Howells' lost hard drive is buried here, containing 7,500 Bitcoins.
The story begins in 2013, when James Howells, then a software engineer, accidentally threw away the hard drive containing 7,500 Bitcoin private keys during spring cleaning. In 2013, Bitcoin hovered around $100 for nearly 5 months. Calculated at $100, his loss was approximately $750,000. But from October 2013, Bitcoin rapidly soared to $1,100 in the following two months. By 2021, Bitcoin successively broke through $50,000 and $60,000 milestones. Even though Bitcoin's current price has retraced nearly 50% from this year's high, valuing James Howells' lost Bitcoin at $30,000 each still amounts to $225 million.
According to a Newport City Council spokesperson, James Howells has contacted them multiple times since 2013 hoping to gain approval to excavate the landfill. However, the council has repeatedly stated that excavation is impossible because it would cause significant environmental impact to the surrounding area, and the cost of excavating, storing, and processing the garbage could reach millions of pounds. Additionally, even if the hard drive were found, there's no guarantee the data could be successfully extracted.
But James Howells stated he won't easily give up. He previously proposed to the city council that if he found the lost Bitcoin, he would donate 10% of the funds to the council. Later, James Howells said he was willing to increase this offer to 25%, hoping the money could be used for Newport COVID-19 relief.
"Actually finding the discarded hard drive isn't difficult, because I'll hire a professional team, and I clearly know when the hard drive was discarded. This way, I can use this information to clearly identify the grid section where the hard drive was buried at that time, then excavate," James Howells said. To this end, he will deploy AI scanners, X-ray scanners, and other high-tech tools.
But all of this depends on finding the hard drive and being able to extract the data. If either of these requirements cannot be met, his promises become void, so James Howells still needs to expend significant effort to persuade government agencies.
Just ten days ago, Mircea Popescu, one of the world's largest individual Bitcoin holders, was found drowned at Carabito Hermosa Beach in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, at age 41. His sudden departure leaves the fate of over $1 billion in cryptocurrency unclear.
Most people may not know much about Mircea Popescu. He was a Romanian entrepreneur who founded the Bitcoin trading platform MP Ex in 2012 and was a very early cryptocurrency evangelist. According to a 2013 forum ranking, Mircea Popescu owned 30,000 Bitcoins, worth approximately $1 billion at current prices. Rumors suggest his family cannot access these crypto assets, meaning this inheritance may disappear with Mircea Popescu's passing.
Previously, The New York Times also reported an incident of Bitcoin loss due to a holder's accidental death. A person named Michael Yang stated that he and a friend and partner each kept half of a Bitcoin password, but one day the partner suddenly passed away, and since then no one has known the other half of the password. At that time, they jointly owned at least 500 Bitcoins, now worth $16 million.
In the early days, because Bitcoin prices were relatively low, some people may not have properly safeguarded their private keys after mining or trading for various reasons, leading to frequent coin loss incidents. David da Fincher from London mined 50 Bitcoins on his computer in 2010, but the computer's incessant noise annoyed him, so he stored the Bitcoin private key to a USB drive and stopped mining. Years later, when Bitcoin's value had multiplied, David da Fincher discovered the USB drive's storage had been overwritten by his wedding video. The New York Times also mentioned an article where someone's laptop was formatted by a colleague, making 800 stored Bitcoins irretrievable.
Beyond losing private keys stored on USB drives, some chose to write Bitcoin-related passwords on paper wallets, and with the paper wallet's disappearance, they essentially say goodbye to those Bitcoins. San Francisco-based programmer Stefan Thomas is in this situation. Over 10 years ago, he made a video about how cryptocurrency works and received 7,002 Bitcoins as compensation, when each Bitcoin was worth only a few dollars. Later, Stefan Thomas stored these Bitcoins in a digital wallet and copied the wallet's password onto a piece of paper. Unfortunately, Stefan Thomas accidentally lost the paper wallet, and the wallet password only allows 10 incorrect attempts before permanently locking. According to the last report, he has only 2 attempts left. If he makes another mistake, it means he'll never be able to access the Bitcoin inside.
Beyond personal accidental loss, unexpected death of holders, hardware failures, or overwritten memory, there's also loss caused by others. Between 2011 and 2012, a drug dealer named Clifton Collins purchased 6,000 Bitcoins at an average cost of about $4-6 each, spending approximately $30,000. Concerned about hackers accessing his account, he distributed this wealth across 12 new accounts and printed account-related information on A4 paper, then hid the A4 paper inside a fishing rod box. Tragically, while he was incarcerated, his landlord casually threw away this valuable fishing rod box. Like James Howells, these Bitcoins worth nearly $200 million vanished into the vast garbage.
Of course, where there are losses, there are also recovery services. Some tech companies crack encrypted wallets by generating and testing millions of potential passwords using specialized software, but this method is quite time-consuming, requiring months, with only a 30% success rate. Additionally, if users only remember a few letters and numbers, it's insufficient to support Bitcoin recovery. Another rather exaggerated method is hypnosis, helping users recall correct passwords through hypnosis. Reportedly, hypnosis recovery has a 50% success rate—seems metaphysical methods are viable too, though there are cases where users recall a string of numbers through hypnosis that may not be the correct password.
Of course, in this vast world, not everyone is "unlucky"—a few fortunate souls have successfully recovered their Bitcoin. One Reddit user stated he accumulated 7.4 Bitcoins at $3,000 each and, on others' advice, placed the Bitcoin in a Trezor hardware wallet. To further protect his assets, this user copied the seed phrase onto a small orange paper slip. While traveling to Japan, worried about journey mishaps, he gave the paper slip to his daughter, but unfortunately, a cleaner treated it as trash and disposed of it. The user was so angry he realized he couldn't even remember the wallet's PIN code. After hundreds of failed attempts, he shared his experience on Reddit for self-deprecating laughs. However, fortunately, he soon received an email from Trezor stating a security vulnerability existed in the old system and urging users to upgrade as soon as possible. Inspired by this, the user found a hacker to help recover the wallet password, ultimately successfully recovering his lost Bitcoin for 0.85 Bitcoin compensation.
In May 2020, Chainalysis released data indicating that approximately 2.78 to 3.79 million Bitcoins have permanently disappeared, representing about 13-18% of all Bitcoins, worth over $100 billion.
From Glassnode's HODL Waves chart, we get this data: 11.83% of Bitcoins haven't moved in over 10 years, 7.25% haven't moved in 7-10 years, 3.06% haven't moved in 5-7 years, and 13.14% haven't moved in 3-5 years. Short-term frequent movers, measured by holding periods under 6 months, include: held under 24 hours at 1.07%, 1 day to 1 week at 1.62%, 1 week to 1 month at 5.39%, 1-3 months at 11.14%, and 3-6 months at 12.56%. We can see that Bitcoins unmoved for over 3 years account for as much as 35.28%.
Losing Bitcoin is inevitable, but as Bitcoin prices continue rising, users will increasingly value Bitcoin. Additionally, with market improvements and enriched Bitcoin investment derivatives, channels for users to invest in cryptocurrency are expanding, and coin loss incidents will become fewer. Recent market trends are relatively calm, with Bitcoin hovering around 35,000. Facing the summer heat, OKX has launched the "Contract Summer Cooling Battle, Trading Can Win 30,000 USDT" event—interested friends can click to participate or enter via the bottom banner in the OKX App.
Long ago, someone asked on a forum: "If a private key is accidentally lost, is there really no way to recover those Bitcoins?" Satoshi Nakamoto replied below: "Lost Bitcoins make everyone else's Bitcoin more valuable—consider it a donation to all."
Disclaimer
This article may contain product-related content not applicable to your region. This article is intended only to provide general information and does not take responsibility for any factual errors or omissions herein. This article represents only the author's personal views and does not represent OKX's views. This article is not intended to provide any of the following advice, including but not limited to: (i) investment advice or investment recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holding digital assets (including stablecoins) involves high risk, may fluctuate significantly, and even become worthless. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets suits your financial situation. For questions about your specific circumstances, please consult your legal/tax/investment professional. Information appearing in this article (including market data and statistics, if any) is for general reference only. While we have taken all reasonable precautions in preparing these data and charts, we assume no responsibility for any factual errors or omissions expressed herein. © 2025 OKX. This article may be reproduced or distributed in full, or excerpts of 100 words or less may be used, provided such use is non-commercial. Any reproduction or distribution of the entire article must prominently state: "This article copyright © 2025 OKX, used with permission." Permitted excerpts must cite the article title and include attribution, such as "Article Name, [Author Name (if applicable)], © 2025 OKX". Some content may be generated or assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Derivative works or other uses of this article are not permitted.
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