⚡️💬 They're there, right in front…

⚡️💬 They're there, right in front of your eyes. Millions of Bitcoin... frozen for eternity on the blockchain.

Entire fortunes gone, doomed never to move again.

Discover the story of the lost Bitcoin ⤵︎

Losing your cryptos in a hack is horrible, but losing access to your wallet is perhaps the worst tragedy of all...

The money is there for all to see... but inaccessible...

Thousands of Bitcoin become inaccessible every year because of a lost password, a misplaced private key or a discarded hard drive.

With supply frozen at 21 million BTC, each Bitcoin lost further reduces the available stock, and mechanically reinforces its scarcity.

Satoshi Nakamoto himself anticipated this as early as June 2010, when he wrote in a forum: "Lost coins only slightly increase the value of other people's coins. Consider it a gift to all."

🔹 How much Bitcoin is estimated to be lost?

It seems like a simple question... but yet it's hard to say with any certainty how many Bitcoin are inaccessible.

There are, however, many estimates of the number of BTC lost forever:

👉 In May 2025, Ledger estimates the number of lost Bitcoin at between 2.3 million and 3.7 million BTC, or around 11% to 18% of the total supply.

👉 On August 25, 2025, River published a report estimating that 1.58 million BTC had been irretrievably lost, or 7.6% of the supply.

👉 A report by Unchained Capital in 2023 puts the figure at as high as 3.8 million BTC possibly lost, or almost 19% of supply in circulation.

👉 A new study by Cane Island Digital Research suggests that 6 million Bitcoins may be permanently inaccessible, i.e. almost a third of the supply already mined.

👉 According to Chainalysis, 99% of wallets deemed lost contain less than 50 Bitcoin (excluding, of course, wallets linked to Satoshi Nakamoto).

So, who to believe? And above all... how is it possible that so much wealth has vanished into thin air?

To understand, we need to go back to the very beginning of history. At a time when Bitcoin was literally worthless. When losing a file or hard disk containing BTC was no big deal...

At the time, no one could have imagined that, years later, it would be worth billions of dollars.

🔹 How can you lose Bitcoin forever?

The question sounds absurd, but there are many situations that have led to losing access to these BTCs for good, here are the most common:

- The early days of Bitcoin.

Back in 2010, a bitcoin was only worth a few cents, so nobody really took it seriously.

Thousands of users stored their private keys in a hurry, in an old text file, a floppy disk or a hard drive lying around.

And then... due to failure, breakage or simply forgetfulness, the hard disk is thrown away, without a second thought.

To access your BTC, you need just one thing: your private key.
If you lose it, you lose your funds.
And unlike a password, there's no "forgot password" button.

And that's how millions of Bitcoins have been lost forever.

➥ Transfer errors.

A simple copy and paste error, a mistyped address... and it's all over.
Many Bitcoins have been sent to non-existent addresses.

➥ Deaths without transmission.

Holders die without taking the time to explain and pass on their private keys to their loved ones.

While some families may be aware that crypto funds exist, it is often impossible to access them due to a lack of transmission.

➥ Bitcoin intentionally burned.

Some of this BTC has also been intentionally sent to one of the various "burn addresses".
These are essentially Bitcoin addresses with no known private key, meaning that any BTC sent to the address is probably inaccessible forever.

For example, at Counterparty's 2014 Proof-of-Burn event, more than 2,700 BTC were sent to over 100 burn addresses.

➥ Satoshi's dormant BTCs.

Satoshi Nakamoto holds around 1.1 million Bitcoin that have never been moved.

Are they really lost? Have they been deliberately abandoned?
There's no way of really knowing.

🔹 The different stories:

➥ 1. Stefan Thomas and his last 2 essays.

Stefan Thomas is a talented developer who was passionate about Bitcoin in its early days.
In 2011, he produced a simple video explaining the crypto and, in gratitude, received 7,002 BTC. A paltry sum at the time... but a veritable fortune today.

Stefan has stored his private key on an Ironkey, a kind of USB stick locked by a Password.

But there's a problem... He can't remember the password at all.

Out of ten possible attempts, he's only got 2 left.

He decides to wait until technology can one day help him unlock his inaccessible treasure...

➥ 2. James howells.

The year is 2013, Newport, Wales.
James Howells, a computer engineer, is cleaning out his office and throws away the contents of a drawer containing various materials, including a hard disk.
An ordinary gesture... except that the disk contained the private key giving access to 7,500 BTC.

At the time, it didn't seem too serious for James. But a few years later, the loss became a nightmare, James realized the extent of his mistake and embarked on a senseless crusade: to find his disk in the municipal rubbish dump.

He offers to finance the entire excavation, compensate the town and manage the ecological impact. But every time James makes a proposal, the authorities refuse, for legal and environmental reasons.

And it was only recently, in August 2025, that the final decision was made. The British courts definitively rejected his application. James Howells must officially abandon his quest.

Its hard drive is out there, buried under tons of garbage. The estimated value of the treasure is now nearly 825 million dollars.

➥ 3. Rain Lõhmus.

Rain Lõhmus is an Estonian banker who took part in the 2014 Ethereum pre-sale.

At the time, he obtained 250,000 ETH for $75,000, at the derisory price of around $0.30 per token. At the time, it was still an audacious gamble.

Rain invested, and then forgot...
He lost the private key, as well as the JSON file required for decryption. Without these two elements, the assets are locked up forever.

Today, the blocked funds represent a fortune of over $1 billion.

Rain confides, however, that he regularly loses passwords, recalling that "just today, I had to reset my codes for my ID card. If this were a crypto, I'd really be in crisis."

➥ 4. His girlfriend throws away her flash drive containing $3 million in cryptocurrency.

During spring cleaning, Ellie organizes a drawer containing old mail, receipts, dead batteries, tangled wires and an old USB flash drive. Eventually, she throws out everything in the drawer, realizing that it's just old, unimportant stuff.

A few days later, her partner Tom can't find his USB stick, and asks Ellie if she's seen him.

"He asked me if I'd seen a little black USB stick he uses to keep his Bitcoin. I froze. I knew instantly. My heart melted on the spot. I said to him, "I think I've thrown it away". I didn't feel good at all."

The couple rushed around, knocking over garbage can bags, rummaging through the garbage, but to no avail ... "There was this horrible mixture of panic and hope, but deep down I knew it was already too late.

This USB key contained the private keys giving access to his Bitcoin purchased by Tom in 2013... Tom explains that over the years, his e-wallet stored on the USB key was now worth over $3 million, but without the device, the funds are inaccessible.

Ellie considers his gesture "the worst mistake of all time".

The couple say they find it hard to move on, and think about it constantly...

"You constantly replay the scene, the moment I picked it up, the second the key landed in the trash. I did everything I could to undo it. I never thought that something so precious could seem so ordinary".

Today, they testify with the aim of inviting people to be careful so that such incidents don't happen again.
"If anyone keeps money, or anything important, on a USB stick, please label it, lock it, don't make the same mistake I did".

➥ 5. Wired.

It all begins in 2013 in a quiet office in San Francisco.
A small machine arrives on the premises of the WIRED media outlet, a small mining machine sent by Butterfly Labs.

The journalists turn it on and after a while, no less than 13 Bitcoin are mined thanks to the machine.

But tensions soon flared in the corridors. What to do with this fortune? Give it to charity? Fund an internal project? Or destroy it all to preserve journalistic integrity?

The debate rages on, with some arguing for transparency, others for the money to be used for something...

Finally, the journalists decide to destroy the private key once and for all.

"We rip up the key. We bury the whole thing and keep our integrity.

➥ 6. Stone man.

In 2010, just 19 months after the launch of Bitcoin, a user of the BitcoinTalk forum, known as Stone Man, shares his experience.

It's an account that, at the time, went almost unnoticed... but which, seen through today's eyes, is bloodcurdling.

Stone Man recounts how he bought 9,000 Bitcoin for $600 on a simple exchange.

He transfers his BTC to his Bitcoin client, saves his wallet.dat file on a USB stick... then closes his program.

Nothing unusual, until he reboots his system. In the process, he deletes the ./bitcoin file loaded in memory. He reloads an old file... and then disaster strikes.
A transaction for 8,900 BTC appears, confirmed, but sent to an address he doesn't recognize.

To fully understand this, we need to put ourselves back in the context of the time: in 2010, Bitcoin Core (the official software, just called "Bitcoin") was still in experimental mode. Each transaction directly generated new addresses in the wallet.dat file, and if you didn't save at the right time... you could literally lose access to certain funds.

This is what happened to Stone Man, who lost 8,900 BTC in a matter of seconds.

At the time, it was "only" $600, but he posted a topic on the forum anyway, asking for help and explaining that he knew the address where the BTC had gone.
But of course, no one has a solution.

Ten years later, in 2020, his message resurfaces on Reddit. Those lost Bitcoins are now worth a colossal fortune.
Some are astonished that he didn't back up his files better. Others point out that, in those early pioneering years, Bitcoin was still in its infancy, far from the modern wallets and security mechanisms we know today.

One user replies:
"Let's be realistic... No one in 2010 would have had the foresight to hold 9,000 BTC until 2017 or beyond. Most would have sold long before then."

He's certainly right, what's certain is that today those 8,900 BTC are still visible to its former owner, who must be kicking himself for not having been more far-sighted.

🔹 The psychological shock of losers.

Losing bitcoins isn't just a technical error, it's a psychological trauma, a real inner earthquake.

Take the case of James Howells, who mistakenly threw away a hard drive containing 7,500 BTC.

Since then, his life has been marked by an obsession: this treasure lies somewhere under a mountain of garbage... and understandably so.

Put yourself in his shoes for a second: every morning, you wake up knowing that you're in possession of colossal wealth, a fortune that could change your life, that of your loved ones, that of your children.
But that fortune is stuck behind a door to which you've lost the key. And all the while, you're watching the Bitcoin price rise, again and again, without ever being able to profit from it.

Some suffer deep depression. Others tell of panic attacks, sleepless nights.

"I'd rather not think about it. If I do, I go crazy."

And what makes the pain even more violent is the responsibility.
Here, there's no bank to blame, no fraudster to accuse, just you.

Psychoanalyst Prudy Gourguechon, a specialist in the psychology of money, explains it very well:

"What they've lost isn't just money. It's a fantasy. The image of the incredible life they could have had, if they still had access to these riches."

🔹 The reality show of lost Bitcoin hunters.

The subject is so fascinating that it ended up... on television.

In 2021, ITV America is casting for a new series: in search of people who have lost access to their crypto wallets.

The casting focuses on real-life stories of people willing to do anything, legally, to access their lost funds.

According to the producers, they want to help "people who can no longer access their crypto wallet. They've exhausted all password attempts... and they want expert help to recover their fortune."

🔹 What solutions if this happens to you?

That's where those known as "crypto-serrurers" come in.

In a Business Insider article from July 2025, we learn about experts like Julia Burlingham, who specialize in recovering lost wallets.

They work with fuzzy clues, wobbly memories: a recovery phrase scribbled on an old piece of paper... passwords forgotten in a corner of memory...
Even if sometimes, miraculously, the funds are recovered, most of the time, despite weeks of effort and sophisticated tools, nothing works.

"If the wallet recovery service hadn't worked... and Dogecoin kept rising... I would have sought out a hypnotist to unlock my repressed memory."
says one witness.

🔹 Tips on how not to let it happen to you.

These stories should open our eyes to the fact of protecting our BTC and preparing the transmission, because yes it doesn't just happen to others.

Here are 5 essential tips:

➥ 1. Multiply backups.
Your private key is the first thing you need to protect, because it's what gives you access to your assets. Don't just leave it on a piece of paper; engrave it on a metal plate, resistant to fire and water. Then hide these plates in a safe, or spread them out in several safe places.

➥ 2. Banish the cloud.
No photos in Google Drive, no files in Dropbox, no screenshots in your phone. A private key exposed to the Internet is a key doomed sooner or later.

➥ 3. Use a hardware wallet.
A physical, disconnected wallet is still your best barrier against hackers and human error.

➥ 4. Be address-obsessed.
Before every transfer, check the address. Not just once, but twice, even three times. Don't just check the first and last characters. A typo or address poisoning and your BTC is lost forever.

➥ 5. Prepare for the inevitable.
An accident, an illness... anything can happen. If you leave without planning, your loved ones will lose access to your Bitcoin. Establish a transmission strategy with clear instructions for your loved ones, even those who know nothing about crypto.

🔹 Conclusion.

These millions of BTC today represent colossal fortunes, doomed to remain inaccessible.

Owning Bitcoin means being your own bank and therefore being completely responsible for your funds.

But neither can anyone save you if you lose your access.

The BTC you own must be protected like a treasure, because with Bitcoin, there are no second chances in the event of a mistake.

🗣️ Thank you for having read this long publication in its entirety if it has more for you do not hesitate to let me know. And I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that FLASH has a btc wallet that you can fill up ( I'm not going to lose the private key 😅 )

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