I used to own 10,000 bitcoin... here is how I lost it all.

[IUsedToOwn10000Bitcoin]

The year was 2010... i was in my final year of school at st johns university, living in a small dorm with 2 guys. i would say march or april if i had to guess the month, early 2010 for sure. I was excessively told about bitcoin by my 2 of my college  roommates who spent too much time online and decided to do some of my own research, read the whitepaper made by satoshi n and was quite fascinated by the technology, i knew it was something new and ahead of the time, but also something that could terribly fail and be another fad. although, because of how much my 2 roomies talked about it i decided why not throw a bit of money into it, and was fine with losing it or not. so fast forward, i lived in new york and was able to find a local who actually sold bulks of bitcoin through my 2 friends who previously bought off them. i was a bored college student... didnt know what i was gonna end up doing with the coins. i wanted to buy $50 worth... ended up spending a bit more than that $60-$80 i believe to get exactly 10,000 bitcoins. it was given to me on a usb which was checked on his computer to verify the bitcoins were really there before i took off. everything was good and i transferred the file from the usb to my personal laptop. now, a single bitcoin was worth a fraction of a penny so i really did not have much focus on such a small thing (at the time). ever since i put it on my laptop i really just forgot about it and did not even think about any ways for me to spend it or use it etc. and just kept it stored on my laptop. i continued to forgot about it due to me graduating college being my primary focus and that's that. then after i graduated i looked to work and did work and never really even thought to care about some stupid bitcoin i bought off some guy for a bit of money. it was just another file on my computer i didnt bother to even look at for months on months.

now fast forward to early 2014 --- this is when i first heard about bitcoin again since i bought em, and no i did not continue to hear from them from my two roommates i was with while in college as 2010 is the year i graduated and after that we did not keep in touch. although i would assume they either lost the bitcoin they had online or are rich as fuck right now, wont find out as i have no way to contact them. anyways, so i was hanging out with a friend of mine who mentioned it to me and how the price went to $1000 and was down a bit and it would be a good time to buy some because he thought it was the future of money, it took me a few minutes to process, then it hit me and i literally almost fainted after coming to the realization i was pretty sure i had a shit ton of what he was talking about. i didnt even fully remember whether i had 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 immediately because of how much it was and how long ago i bought it but i knew it was one of those. i was so shocked and he was so confused then i just left the conversation as soon as he told me about the price to go online and check for myself if this is really the same shit i bought 4 years ago as a curious college student. it all hit me at once, i knew by the symbol and the chart which showed it going from where i bought it at less than a penny all the way to over $1000 that this was exactly what i bought and i remembered i bought 10,000 with the $60-$80 i spent and was in disbelief and euphoria over the fact that i had an absolute huge fortune waiting for me at home. this all felt unreal to me, i still remember the emotions i had going through me. now after realizing i had this fortune, i had to remember carefully where i stored these bitcoins, eventually i remembered i had it on my old personal laptop and at that moment i had a panic attack due to the fact that the laptop i had put the bitcoin on broke on me and was replaced although i figured i am not totally doomed because all i should need to get the file is the hard drive. so i look for the computer only to realize that because it was broken and old and damaged, my mom told me she had thrown it away a few years back after it broke down on me since she thought it was pretty much untouched junk and expected id never need it again. at that point i literally fainted, i was angry, confused, shocked, in denial, sad, raged and so many other emotions all at once that i literally just passed out. my mom woke me back up and i ran out of the house out of anger to go have a mental breakdown in my backyard. What was supposed to be the best day of my life become by far the worst. As u can imagine, the fact that i thought i had what was between 5-10 mil at the time and then right after had that taken away from me broke my heart. i never felt the amount of pain and severe depression i felt as i did on that day. the next few months of my life were spent very badly, every day i would be reminded of what happened and how my life could of been but wasnt because my mom threw out my fortune, i am not proud of it but i started to actually resent her and be disrespectful to her often. it was a bad bad time as i was working a shitty job with low pay and living in my parents house at 25 (shout out to my useless degree) so that bitcoin would have really changed my life completely. i started going through severe depression and suicidal thoughts constantly, i really did want to kill myself knowing what had happened to me. although i tried to get through it and didnt even tell any of my friends including the one who mentioned bitcoin to me to remind me of bitcoin what happened, though they felt i was acting different and not my usual self those following months. i barely went out, i lost my job due to my sudden lack of effort from what happened, i lost friends, i isolated myself from everyone and everything including my family. i gained a lot of weight and did a lot of dumb shit im not proud of. my life was pretty horrible for the year of 2014.

now fast forward to early 2015 i started to get back on my feet and try to get over the shitty year i just had. and the fact bitcoin dipped to $200ish helped with how i felt about the whole thing, though i never even considered putting another penny in it again and hoped it would just crash and die so i could keep this in the past, although as u all know this wasnt the case. now here we are in 2018, i am still broke, i still live with my parents, i am employed, but at a shitty job, and have friends, but we dont talk much, and life is just not the same as it used to be. the past 6 months were almost as hard as 2014 was. seeing bitcoin go up insane amounts all the way to nearly 20k and now around 10k really makes me sick to the stomach, to think that i bought 10,000 at less than a penny, WHAT THE FUCK... it still hurts. i really just want to feel like this is just some very long shitty ass nightmare and wake up to reality again but i know thats not the case. i could have had the most epic fucking life and most epic story to tell of how my riches came but it never happened. my life is on a downhill, i am severely depressed and have suicidal thoughts pretty much everyday. things are not the same as they once were and never will be the same because bitcoin has ruined my life. my hopes were all high and euphoric then right after low and dreadful within 24 hours, and it has impacted me til now and will continue to weigh me down for however much longer i live.

there is really no specific moral to this story, and i dont want sympathy from any of you, but i just wanted to vent this to someone or somewhere finally to get my story out. this is the first and last time i will speak out publicly to anyone about this, so there you guys go. that is the story of how i lost 10,000 bitcoin. that is all.

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[bug.lady]

The year was 2010...

there is really no specific moral to this story, and i dont want sympathy from any of you, but i just wanted to vent this to someone or somewhere finally to get my story out. this is the first and last time i will speak out publicly to anyone about this, so there you guys go. that is the story of how i lost 10,000 bitcoin. that is all.

I will not tell you anything you explicitly said you don't want to hear, just let me tell you thanks for sharing, this is a story of pain and sadness but at the same time a great reading. I went through it like through a well written book. Maybe you should consider writing a book mate?

I hope you recover completely, what is past is - well, past, and not worth allowing it impact this very moment.

[alia]

No, you didn't lose millions. You lost a couple hundred dollars.

I always see people crying, like: oh no, that pizza I bought could've been $1.5mm today, or oh no, I lost 5k BTC because I threw away my laptop. If anyone knew how much that 5k BTC would've been worth in the future, they'd create a heavily guarded and armoured building and put it in a secure vault facility. The only reason you were so careless with your coins is the fact that you could not have seen the future. I once had a wallet with 1500 BTC, which I lost. Do I cry about having missed out on millions? No. There are opportunities today, which you have to grab by the balls - lamenting over the past yields absolutely nothing.

To reiterate - saying "damn, I wish I had kept those 10,000 coins" is similar to saying "damn, I wish I had last week's lottery numbers" or "damn, I wish I was a time traveller". It's simply rubbish. Your life took its course, it cannot be changed, and honestly, there's no reason to feel bad. Consider it an expensive lesson, and move on to bigger and greater things. I believe in you.

[ManaMan]

You are not the first nor last person to experience something like this. You could be miserable and do nothing or you can try to make your life better and be more grateful and simply try to backup everything. It is sad story but don't be harsh on yourself, easier said than done I agree. All I can say is you can still learn new things and get a better life. Who knows maybe you would have sold all your bitcoins when the price was 1k and now regret that even more. Thing is it happened it is the past, you still have time to make things right. Bitcoin is not the best opportunity of the century, there are opportunities around and you are the one who needs to find them.

Although I don't know if your story is true or not, since we had some people that come and tell these kind of made up stories, anyway hopefully this should be a good learning story to show new people that you want to have backups made, multiple of them and store in safe place if possible.

[BitcSeo]

Move ahead. such experience prepare us for greatness but, it depends on you.

There are lot of opportunities within and outside the bitcoin niche In most case, people can see them as opportunity until they are realized by someone else.

This reminder about the foundation of facebook. The idea behind this network was not directly from Zukerberg but, being part of the other two guys, he visualize the idea and took action.

Final note: if, possible try locating the pendrive where the seller had installed the code

Thanks

[Benkortan]

Bro you are to tough on yourself. I have read about Bitcoin in 2009. What if I have tried...naaah cut the bull...
If you use that 10000 Bitcoins at that time, maybe you would buy two pizzas like that guy Laszlo
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1141#msg1141

But even he got over it. Read his comments.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=143;sa=showPosts

You can earn today a lot of money, why go to the past constantly. Live your life now. Death is all waiting for us that's for sure.
So don't waste the precious time anymore.

[Kulafu]

I love to read your story dude. It's really a big lost on your part. You're supposed to be filthy millionaire. even not to work all the rest of your life interest alone of the money could support all your need.

Sometime the most neglected thing or person are the most valuable and important to us at the end.
Moral lesson. 'Pay attention to everyone seems not so important to you those can bring you fortune on the latter.'

Always remember dude 'life is more important than money don't linger on the past because past  always bring regrets to us'.
 Good that you vent. 

[YuginKadoya]

No, you didn't lose millions. You lost a couple hundred dollars.

I always see people crying, like: oh no, that pizza I bought could've been $1.5mm today, or oh no, I lost 5k BTC because I threw away my laptop. If anyone knew how much that 5k BTC would've been worth in the future, they'd create a heavily guarded and armoured building and put it in a secure vault facility. The only reason you were so careless with your coins is the fact that you could not have seen the future. I once had a wallet with 1500 BTC, which I lost. Do I cry about having missed out on millions? No. There are opportunities today, which you have to grab by the balls - lamenting over the past yields absolutely nothing.

To reiterate - saying "damn, I wish I had kept those 10,000 coins" is similar to saying "damn, I wish I had last week's lottery numbers" or "damn, I wish I was a time traveller". It's simply rubbish. Your life took its course, it cannot be changed, and honestly, there's no reason to feel bad. Consider it an expensive lesson, and move on to bigger and greater things. I believe in you.

I agree! back then the price is just a couple of penny don't over think about it, you just lost $80 dollar and back then there is no sure analysis that bitcoin's price going to pump up to the $18,000 or more, There are still time to recover your lost, even though bitcoin right now had a tremendous amount there are still other Coins out there that needs attention that in the future can still become big, back then in 2010 my friend have told me about bitcoin but I never had interest with it because of lack of knowledge with the blockchain system, And like you the year 2015 was the start of me getting into bitcoin and because of this forum site, I have learn so much, That is why it is not the end for us it is only the beginning.

[IUsedToOwn10000Bitcoin]

Move ahead. such experience prepare us for greatness but, it depends on you.

There are lot of opportunities within and outside the bitcoin niche In most case, people can see them as opportunity until they are realized by someone else.

This reminder about the foundation of facebook. The idea behind this network was not directly from Zukerberg but, being part of the other two guys, he visualize the idea and took action.

Final note: if, possible try locating the pendrive where the seller had installed the code

Thanks

what good will finding the pendrive do? i have no idea where it is.there is a small chance i still have it but it is likely someone in my family tossed it or lost it as it was a cheap used usb stick.

[Sarastiche]

The past is gone forever,we are human ban to make mistake and take wrong decision, Nice that you have  move ahead, everyone always feel a loss in this space,the beauty is that opportunity still exist now and in the future, great mind fall and rise, clen he dust and keep moving

[juiceannabel]

i think i understand you. 10,000 bitcoin now is about 100,000,000 USD
if i was in your position, im gonna get depressed too.

[jritz2344973]

You are not the first nor last person to experience something like this. You could be miserable and do nothing or you can try to make your life better and be more grateful and simply try to backup everything. It is sad story but don't be harsh on yourself, easier said than done I agree. All I can say is you can still learn new things and get a better life. Who knows maybe you would have sold all your bitcoins when the price was 1k and now regret that even more. Thing is it happened it is the past, you still have time to make things right. Bitcoin is not the best opportunity of the century, there are opportunities around and you are the one who needs to find them.

Although I don't know if your story is true or not, since we had some people that come and tell these kind of made up stories, anyway hopefully this should be a good learning story to show new people that you want to have backups made, multiple of them and store in safe place if possible.

We have a long way to go and we have a lot of fork in the road. When we come to these fork breaks, we will hesitate either to the left or not to the right. It is like choosing a multiple choice when reading a book. Since you have chosen Bitcoin, you have to take that responsibility, although I sympathize with your experience.

[JoshMart]

The year was 2010... i was in my final year of school at st johns university, living in a small dorm with 2 guys. i would say march or april if i had to guess the month, early 2010 for sure. I was excessively told about bitcoin by my 2 of my college  roommates who spent too much time online and decided to do some of my own research, read the whitepaper made by satoshi n and was quite fascinated by the technology, i knew it was something new and ahead of the time, but also something that could terribly fail and be another fad. although, because of how much my 2 roomies talked about it i decided why not throw a bit of money into it, and was fine with losing it or not. so fast forward, i lived in new york and was able to find a local who actually sold bulks of bitcoin through my 2 friends who previously bought off them. i was a bored college student... didnt know what i was gonna end up doing with the coins. i wanted to buy $50 worth... ended up spending a bit more than that $60-$80 i believe to get exactly 10,000 bitcoins. it was given to me on a usb which was checked on his computer to verify the bitcoins were really there before i took off. everything was good and i transferred the file from the usb to my personal laptop. now, a single bitcoin was worth a fraction of a penny so i really did not have much focus on such a small thing (at the time). ever since i put it on my laptop i really just forgot about it and did not even think about any ways for me to spend it or use it etc. and just kept it stored on my laptop. i continued to forgot about it due to me graduating college being my primary focus and that's that. then after i graduated i looked to work and did work and never really even thought to care about some stupid bitcoin i bought off some guy for a bit of money. it was just another file on my computer i didnt bother to even look at for months on months.

now fast forward to early 2014 --- this is when i first heard about bitcoin again since i bought em, and no i did not continue to hear from them from my two roommates i was with while in college as 2010 is the year i graduated and after that we did not keep in touch. although i would assume they either lost the bitcoin they had online or are rich as fuck right now, wont find out as i have no way to contact them. anyways, so i was hanging out with a friend of mine who mentioned it to me and how the price went to $1000 and was down a bit and it would be a good time to buy some because he thought it was the future of money, it took me a few minutes to process, then it hit me and i literally almost fainted after coming to the realization i was pretty sure i had a shit ton of what he was talking about. i didnt even fully remember whether i had 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 immediately because of how much it was and how long ago i bought it but i knew it was one of those. i was so shocked and he was so confused then i just left the conversation as soon as he told me about the price to go online and check for myself if this is really the same shit i bought 4 years ago as a curious college student. it all hit me at once, i knew by the symbol and the chart which showed it going from where i bought it at less than a penny all the way to over $1000 that this was exactly what i bought and i remembered i bought 10,000 with the $60-$80 i spent and was in disbelief and euphoria over the fact that i had an absolute huge fortune waiting for me at home. this all felt unreal to me, i still remember the emotions i had going through me. now after realizing i had this fortune, i had to remember carefully where i stored these bitcoins, eventually i remembered i had it on my old personal laptop and at that moment i had a panic attack due to the fact that the laptop i had put the bitcoin on broke on me and was replaced although i figured i am not totally doomed because all i should need to get the file is the hard drive. so i look for the computer only to realize that because it was broken and old and damaged, my mom told me she had thrown it away a few years back after it broke down on me since she thought it was pretty much untouched junk and expected id never need it again. at that point i literally fainted, i was angry, confused, shocked, in denial, sad, raged and so many other emotions all at once that i literally just passed out. my mom woke me back up and i ran out of the house out of anger to go have a mental breakdown in my backyard. What was supposed to be the best day of my life become by far the worst. As u can imagine, the fact that i thought i had what was between 5-10 mil at the time and then right after had that taken away from me broke my heart. i never felt the amount of pain and severe depression i felt as i did on that day. the next few months of my life were spent very badly, every day i would be reminded of what happened and how my life could of been but wasnt because my mom threw out my fortune, i am not proud of it but i started to actually resent her and be disrespectful to her often. it was a bad bad time as i was working a shitty job with low pay and living in my parents house at 25 (shout out to my useless degree) so that bitcoin would have really changed my life completely. i started going through severe depression and suicidal thoughts constantly, i really did want to kill myself knowing what had happened to me. although i tried to get through it and didnt even tell any of my friends including the one who mentioned bitcoin to me to remind me of bitcoin what happened, though they felt i was acting different and not my usual self those following months. i barely went out, i lost my job due to my sudden lack of effort from what happened, i lost friends, i isolated myself from everyone and everything including my family. i gained a lot of weight and did a lot of dumb shit im not proud of. my life was pretty horrible for the year of 2014.

now fast forward to early 2015 i started to get back on my feet and try to get over the shitty year i just had. and the fact bitcoin dipped to $200ish helped with how i felt about the whole thing, though i never even considered putting another penny in it again and hoped it would just crash and die so i could keep this in the past, although as u all know this wasnt the case. now here we are in 2018, i am still broke, i still live with my parents, i am employed, but at a shitty job, and have friends, but we dont talk much, and life is just not the same as it used to be. the past 6 months were almost as hard as 2014 was. seeing bitcoin go up insane amounts all the way to nearly 20k and now around 10k really makes me sick to the stomach, to think that i bought 10,000 at less than a penny, WHAT THE FUCK... it still hurts. i really just want to feel like this is just some very long shitty ass nightmare and wake up to reality again but i know thats not the case. i could have had the most epic fucking life and most epic story to tell of how my riches came but it never happened. my life is on a downhill, i am severely depressed and have suicidal thoughts pretty much everyday. things are not the same as they once were and never will be the same because bitcoin has ruined my life. my hopes were all high and euphoric then right after low and dreadful within 24 hours, and it has impacted me til now and will continue to weigh me down for however much longer i live.

there is really no specific moral to this story, and i dont want sympathy from any of you, but i just wanted to vent this to someone or somewhere finally to get my story out. this is the first and last time i will speak out publicly to anyone about this, so there you guys go. that is the story of how i lost 10,000 bitcoin. that is all.

Thanks for sharing. Dude, that's really a tough one. Just a friendly advise, move forward. You can't do anything about it any more but you can do something NOW to change your future. You were careless that time because you didn't see its value then but hey learn from it. Don't let it define your entire life, you are alive so that means you can still do something WORTHWHILE about it. Hope this helps. 

[smith4cris]

Kind Sir,

Yesterday is History.
Tomorrow is a Mystery.
Today is a gift that is why it is called Present.
It's hard to swallow but most of the time lessons are learned once we experience it in life.
No one is certain on what will happen tomorrow.
But what you do today can change what you will be tomorrow.

Using your story we can see how we put little value of things that we already have.
Glad to know your parents are still alive and you are employed and working and earning a little more for yourself.
Glad to know that today you are active here in this forum and that you are far more knowledgeable than most of us newbies here.
Glad to hear that you only lost $80 max on something you did not know would be of value in the future.
Glad to know you had a new laptop when your old one was broken.
I have personally experience loosing around $1,000 and have to charge it to experience. I hear and know that there are a lot of people who loose more money even million just to learn the lessons of life.
I got depressed myself when I was younger and somehow at times I am reminded of the things I did or did not that might have been for better but who knows right?

Kind Sir, you might have lost 10,000 bitcoin... but I hope you have forgiven your Mother. You can always buy a bitcoin when you earn money or even try other Altcoins. I know your Mom only had the best thoughts for you and I know that she is feeling worse at your worst day. You may have regretted loosing 10,000 bitcoin that costed you $80, but I know it costs more for them in sending you to college and it pains them to see that you are not able to use your degree and potential as a person in full.

Thank you for writing your story. My dad died few years back and there are a lot of things I wish I did when he was still alive.

Goodluck to you Kind Sir and More Power.

[btcCoincart]

Holy!
What a pain! Hope you are still good at all!
Anw, thanks for sharing

[Haunebu]

Wow. Could feel your emotions as I was reading the entire story. I cannot begin to think how I would feel in your place. I felt angry that I discovered bitcoin and the crypto world way too late(Was $1000 when I first discovered it), but I did not let that stop me. Instead, I was excited and began learning the basics of the crypto world and how the market worked which helped me earn huge profits until this point and I am confident that I will continue earning big profits in the future through bitcoin and other altcoins. Do not let this stop you and focus on moving forward and screw the weak suicidal thoughts.

[warningsigns]

I do not want to read this because it makes for painful reading and yet I couldn’t help it. Opened the thread and read your story. Made me depressed. I have to shift my thoughts to something else quickly.

I myself used to have 600+ bitcoins back in 2013 and I was happily trading them in the $100 range. Then something crazy happened. Authorities seized Liberty Reserve and I quickly dumped and sold all my coins on Bitstamp, thinking the price might dive and I might end up having worthless coins.

When I look back and think of what might or could have happened if I simply cold-stored them with a bullish belief in what the future might hold, I just shake my head in sadness.

10k coins. You could have retired young.

[tuskacz]

Nice FAKE story ha ha. Prove what you said by providing bitcoin address and dates of transaction. Otherwise you are a liar.

[Dapper]

The first step would be to step back into reality and get to work. 

[charliegengos]

We love to hear your story mate,  I do believe that there's a reason why it happened to you. It's not too late to stand up. Do not live with your past. Learn lessons, stand up and move on. Even if bitcoin did not gave you fortune. You can be proud because you owned 10,000 btc  in your life.