The Bureau of Historic Losses
The Archive
History's great crypto losses, kept on file and priced live. The numbers below update hourly. They only ever get worse.
№ 001 · CLOSED · opened 2010 · Laszlo Hanyecz
The Pizza
Two pizzas. Ten thousand bitcoin. The man says he'd do it again.
current value of the fail
US$626.1M
№ 002 · CLOSED · opened 2013 · James Howells
The Landfill
One hard drive, one dump in Wales, and twelve years of trying to dig.
current value of the fail
US$500.9M
№ 003 · UNRESOLVED · opened 2011 · Stefan Thomas
Two Guesses
A password, an IronKey, ten attempts. Eight are gone.
current value of the fail
US$438.4M
№ 004 · RECOVERED · opened 2026 · Claude AI · Joe Grand
The Machine Remembers
Brute force gave up at 3.5 trillion passwords. The AI just read his files.
current value of the fail
US$313,039
№ 005 · RECOVERED · opened 2009 · Kristoffer Koch
The One Who Forgot
He bought it for a thesis, forgot it existed, and won.
current value of the fail
US$313M
№ 006 · SETTLING · opened 2014 · Mt. Gox
The Exchange
The exchange that held most of Bitcoin, until it held none of it.
current value of the fail
US$53.2B
№ 007 · CLOSED · opened 2018 · QuadrigaCX · Gerald Cotten
The Only Keyholder
The keys died with him — then investigators found the vault was already empty.
owed to customers · ~13¢ on the dollar returned
≈CA$190M
№ 008 · UNRESOLVED · opened 2009 · Chainalysis estimate
The Missing Fifth
Roughly one bitcoin in five may already be unreachable. Here's where that number comes from.
current value of the fail
US$144B–231.6B
Every file above belonged to someone who didn't think it would be them.
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