Featured Image Credit: Binance/Getty Images/NurPhoto
Topics: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Money, Technology
Joe Yates
Topics: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Money, Technology
Over a decade ago, a man lost the equivalent of $26 billion in Bitcoin after the market crashed.
There are some nightmare tales of people having lost or traded their Bitcoin only to discover years down the line they've lost out on a fortune they could only dream of.
We all know Laszlo Hanyecz's story, the Florida man who bought two pizzas using 10,000 Bitcoins back in 2010 - the equivalent of $1,037,902,000 - making each of them worth $512,412,500 today.
Speaking to 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper during his first TV interview, Hanyecz revealed his reasoning for doing so.
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He said: "I honestly thought it would be really cool if I could say, 'Hey, I just traded this, you know, open source internet money for a real world good'."
A year later, a Nebraska man named Kevin Day purchased 259,684 Bitcoins for $2,613 - which, according to Google, is worth $26,952,654,296 in today's valuation... yes, that's almost $27 billion.
According to Forbes' Rich List for 2024, that amount would have made Day the 69th richest person on the planet right now.
On June 19, 2011, something weird was going on with the cryptocurrency market - more specifically, Bitcoin.
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At the start of the day one Bitcoin was trading for $17.50 but in less than 20 minutes the market had crashed to just one cent per Bitcoin.
While people were in shock at what had happened, Day leapt on the opportunity to purchase as many Bitcoins as he possibly could - he had $3,000 in his crypto wallet from previous trades.
Aware that people would bid the standard one cent for the Bitcoin he decided to bid for the lot at $0.0101 per Bitcoin so that the system would favor his transaction when accepting people's offers.
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He came away with 259,684 Bitcoins but he quickly realized that the reason for the crash was due to someone hacking the Mt. Gox - the exchange server for Bitcoin.
The culprit had hacked into people's Bitcoin accounts and sold off all their coins.
Day tried to withdraw all the Bitcoins he had in his account but was unable to - instead, he managed to withdraw 643 Bitcoins, which today is the equivalent of $66 million.
To rectify the hack, Mt. Gox decided to roll back all the trades made during the crash.
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It meant the exchange erased his trade for the bizarre reason that the server was hacked - but they didn't come after him for the 643 Bitcoins.
It meant that Day lost out on 259,041 Bitcoins at a value in today's market of more than $26 billion.