Current Events > Guy mines 1000 bitcoin. Saves it on USB. USB died and he lost $10 million

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/investing/dont-tell-my-wife-melbourne-man-cries-over-lost-bitcoins-as-price-surges-past-us10000/ news-story/bd18b6f6aa123dca017f9cc75544fd01

Link is too long for gamefaqs. Wow. Let that be a lesson. Don't save your mined coins on a cheap USB
---

@BignutzisBack how does this make you feel?

Damn lol.
---

You probably shouldn't save it on a USB period
---

Lmfao
---

you mean he stored his identification info to his account (the key) on the drive and probably locked it thinking this was safer than paper
---

Ouch. That's like the Bitcoin equivalent of losing a jackpot winning lottery ticket.

MikeArmstrong posted...

@BignutzisBack how does this make you feel?

Fuck that is scary, I have mine in cold storage with a backup seed in case it ever dies or I lose it
---

how long would it take for one to mine 1000 BTC and also how much would it cost for the utitlities to do so.
---

EVERYONE

Who owns crypto knows you physically write that shit down and lock it away
---

BignutzisBack posted...

MikeArmstrong posted...

BignutzisBack how does this make you feel?

Fuck that is scary, I have mine in cold storage with a backup seed in case it ever dies or I lose it

Nice. Back that shit up

juicebox4 posted...

how long would it take for one to mine 1000 BTC and also how much would it cost for the utitlities to do so.

In the early days of crypto, not long.

Now? An eternity. They are approaching the hard cap of the amount of actual bitcoins and with that the hash chains are becoming harder and harder to obtain on basic computers.

You can still mine low key cryptos though, quite regularly.

Cost is whatever you paid for your computer and whatever your KW/h is.
---

chrono625 posted...

Cost is whatever you paid for your computer and whatever your KW/h is.

I keep hearing you need a certain type of computer that won't implode from how demanding mining apparently is. what are said comps?
---

juicebox4 posted...

chrono625 posted...

Cost is whatever you paid for your computer and whatever your KW/h is.

I keep hearing you need a certain type of computer that won't implode from how demanding mining apparently is. what are said comps?

Not really. Depending on how hard you push your CPU and GPU to perform the hash calculation.

The cards range between 300-500 last I checked. Also, cooling will help immensely to prevent your compouter from over heating.

BUT for Btc in particularly, computer banks are required to actually make an progress with them.
---

right on. thanks man. I will never bother trying, lol.
---

I have no idea what any of this is lol. Mining?
---

Should've saved his keys
---

I really don't understand the concept of saving it on a storage device. I mean what is that? All I get is having it on Coinbase and the trackers and I can sell it. How do you sell something on a storage device? Is it a Word file saying "I have 1000 bitcoins, trust me!"
---

I'd breakdown honestly.

Imagine looking that much money that way.
---

KazumaKiryu posted...

I really don't understand the concept of saving it on a storage device. I mean what is that? All I get is having it on Coinbase and the trackers and I can sell it. How do you sell something on a storage device? Is it a Word file saying "I have 1000 bitcoins, trust me!"

it is basically a password to the account

if you write it down
someone can use it and access your account and take all your money

so he put it on a drive that was encrypted with a password to access

so if anyone got his drive, then it would be hard to take his money

problem is, if he didn't memorize or put this somewhere else, then he loses it too
---

---

darkphoenix181 posted...

KazumaKiryu posted...

I really don't understand the concept of saving it on a storage device. I mean what is that? All I get is having it on Coinbase and the trackers and I can sell it. How do you sell something on a storage device? Is it a Word file saying "I have 1000 bitcoins, trust me!"

it is basically a password to the account

if you write it down
someone can use it and access your account and take all your money

so he put it on a drive that was encrypted with a password to access

so if anyone got his drive, then it would be hard to take his money

problem is, if he didn't memorize or put this somewhere else, then he loses it too

You don't have to use a 3rd party crypto wallet or coin reserve.

You can actually hold your coins offline, it's called cold storage.

So he didn't just lose his password or whatever. He physically lost the coins since the drive is gone.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage
---

chrono625 posted...

You don't have to use a 3rd party crypto wallet or coin reserve.You can actually hold your coins offline, it's called cold storage.So he didn't just lose his password or whatever. He physically lost the coins since the drive is gone.https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage

See, I've been buying crypto since like May, and this stuff makes absolutely no sense to me.

How would you get it out of your Coinbase wallet and into a storage device? I know how to send currency to another address... so I assume the USB has some address that it sends to? Makes no sense though.
---

This is why I like using cloud storage as well as local storage.
---

KazumaKiryu posted...

chrono625 posted...

You don't have to use a 3rd party crypto wallet or coin reserve.You can actually hold your coins offline, it's called cold storage.So he didn't just lose his password or whatever. He physically lost the coins since the drive is gone.https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage

See, I've been buying crypto since like May, and this stuff makes absolutely no sense to me.

How would you get it out of your Coinbase wallet and into a storage device? I know how to send currency to another address... so I assume the USB has some address that it sends to? Makes no sense though.

Coin base isn't the only wallet out there.

Mt. Gox was popular before they got hacked. There are ways to store them safely in your local possession.

This is highly recommended for people with.large amounts of coin, like the person in the OP.

The problem was his back up system was incredibly poor for that much coin.
---

KazumaKiryu posted...

chrono625 posted...

You don't have to use a 3rd party crypto wallet or coin reserve.You can actually hold your coins offline, it's called cold storage.So he didn't just lose his password or whatever. He physically lost the coins since the drive is gone.https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage

See, I've been buying crypto since like May, and this stuff makes absolutely no sense to me.

How would you get it out of your Coinbase wallet and into a storage device? I know how to send currency to another address... so I assume the USB has some address that it sends to? Makes no sense though.

there is no such thing as physically losing the coins for bitcoins

but it seems from his link what it means is you get a key which allows you to regenerate the coin which is what was lost

because apparently you can actually just write it down on paper
---

chrono625 posted...

juicebox4 posted...Now? An eternity. They are approaching the hard cap of the amount of actual bitcoins and with that the hash chains are becoming harder and harder to obtain on basic computers.

Mining bitcoin is loaning out your computers processing power to run the backend stuff that makes bitcoin sucre right? That is why they give out some bitcoin for running mining programs to keep the network up.

So if the hard cap is reached then most people will stop trying to mine bitcoin because they dont recoup cost. Then wouldnt that cause at least a massive slowdown in any btc transactions or even a complete breakdown of the system making btc impossible to trade?
---

charey posted...

So if the hard cap is reached then most people will stop trying to mine bitcoin because they dont recoup cost. Then wouldnt that cause at least a massive slowdown in any btc transactions or even a complete breakdown of the system making btc impossible to trade?

There are fees for making bitcoin transactions and those fees go to the the miners that verify the transactions.
---

Always got to back that shit up on paper. Hardware storage is good as well, but always have an alternative back up in case the device fails.

Hehe.
---

How do you mine coins? I don't get how that works
---

DifferentialEquation posted...

charey posted...

So if the hard cap is reached then most people will stop trying to mine bitcoin because they dont recoup cost. Then wouldnt that cause at least a massive slowdown in any btc transactions or even a complete breakdown of the system making btc impossible to trade?

There are fees for making bitcoin transactions and those fees go to the the miners that verify the transactions.

Ok so there is an alternate method of paying miners then just making bits.

Thanks for the info.
---

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

How do you mine coins? I don't get how that works

Back in the days, people use their CPU to mine bitcoins. But now that is obsolete, and inefficient as there are dedicated mining hardware such as the Antminer (this stuff costs a lot of money).

You can build your own mining rig as well using graphics/video cards. But I don't think GPU mining works with bitcoins. However I do know that you can mine ethereum, dash, zcash, and many others.
---

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

How do you mine coins? I don't get how that works

Back in the days, people use their CPU to mine bitcoins. But now that is obsolete, and inefficient as there are dedicated mining hardware such as the Antminer (this stuff costs a lot of money).

You can build your own mining rig as well using graphics/video cards. But I don't think GPU mining works with bitcoins. However I do know that you can mine ethereum, dash, zcash, and many others.

I know what CPU is, but I don't understand any of the rest of that post >_<
---

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

How do you mine coins? I don't get how that works

Back in the days, people use their CPU to mine bitcoins. But now that is obsolete, and inefficient as there are dedicated mining hardware such as the Antminer (this stuff costs a lot of money).

You can build your own mining rig as well using graphics/video cards. But I don't think GPU mining works with bitcoins. However I do know that you can mine ethereum, dash, zcash, and many others.

I know what CPU is, but I don't understand any of the rest of that post >_<

Point out what you don't understand, and I'll try and explain it as best as I can.
---

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

How do you mine coins? I don't get how that works

Back in the days, people use their CPU to mine bitcoins. But now that is obsolete, and inefficient as there are dedicated mining hardware such as the Antminer (this stuff costs a lot of money).

You can build your own mining rig as well using graphics/video cards. But I don't think GPU mining works with bitcoins. However I do know that you can mine ethereum, dash, zcash, and many others.

I know what CPU is, but I don't understand any of the rest of that post >_<

Point out what you don't understand, and I'll try and explain it as best as I can.

I don't know what mining actually means in this case or how it is done, or how video cards could be involved or what cryptocurrency even actually is.
---

What is the reason that they would implement a hard cap on the amount of possible bitcoins that could be mined?

Isn't that practically assuring the collapse of the entire system from the start?
---

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

How do you mine coins? I don't get how that works

Back in the days, people use their CPU to mine bitcoins. But now that is obsolete, and inefficient as there are dedicated mining hardware such as the Antminer (this stuff costs a lot of money).

You can build your own mining rig as well using graphics/video cards. But I don't think GPU mining works with bitcoins. However I do know that you can mine ethereum, dash, zcash, and many others.

I know what CPU is, but I don't understand any of the rest of that post >_<

Point out what you don't understand, and I'll try and explain it as best as I can.

I don't know what mining actually means in this case or how it is done, or how video cards could be involved or what cryptocurrency even actually is.

Cryptocurrency mining is using your hardware (be it CPU, GPU, or a dedicated miner like Antminer) to solve mathematical problems. When the problem is solved, you will be rewarded some cryptocurrency.

That's just the gist of it. You can probably learn more about it by watching some YouTube videos.
---

...

why?

As long as you have your wallet codes you shouldn't need anything physical right?

If you have that much crypto saved up why would you not have that shit written down in a safe or something? >_>
---

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

How do you mine coins? I don't get how that works

Back in the days, people use their CPU to mine bitcoins. But now that is obsolete, and inefficient as there are dedicated mining hardware such as the Antminer (this stuff costs a lot of money).

You can build your own mining rig as well using graphics/video cards. But I don't think GPU mining works with bitcoins. However I do know that you can mine ethereum, dash, zcash, and many others.

I know what CPU is, but I don't understand any of the rest of that post >_<

Point out what you don't understand, and I'll try and explain it as best as I can.

I don't know what mining actually means in this case or how it is done, or how video cards could be involved or what cryptocurrency even actually is.

Cryptocurrency mining is using your hardware (be it CPU, GPU, or a dedicated miner like Antminer) to solve mathematical problems. When the problem is solved, you will be rewarded some cryptocurrency.

That's just the gist of it. You can probably learn more about it by watching some YouTube videos.

Ah okay. Are these problems made specifically for this purpose or are they just really complex problems that are pretty much unsolvable without having the highest end hardware and have gone unsolved prior to this era?
---

So theres 1000 bitcoins floating out there and no one can possibly claim them now?
---

Howl posted...

What is the reason that they would implement a hard cap on the amount of possible bitcoins that could be mined?

Isn't that practically assuring the collapse of the entire system from the start?

If you can have unlimited of something or a resource, is there any value to it? It's the same reason why the federal reserve can't just print more money.

There isn't a point where you can't mine anymore btc, it's going to only get harder and harder to mine. I should have sad sift cap.
---

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

ShadowofSolidus posted...

ImTheMacheteGuy posted...

How do you mine coins? I don't get how that works

Back in the days, people use their CPU to mine bitcoins. But now that is obsolete, and inefficient as there are dedicated mining hardware such as the Antminer (this stuff costs a lot of money).

You can build your own mining rig as well using graphics/video cards. But I don't think GPU mining works with bitcoins. However I do know that you can mine ethereum, dash, zcash, and many others.

I know what CPU is, but I don't understand any of the rest of that post >_<

Point out what you don't understand, and I'll try and explain it as best as I can.

I don't know what mining actually means in this case or how it is done, or how video cards could be involved or what cryptocurrency even actually is.

Cryptocurrency mining is using your hardware (be it CPU, GPU, or a dedicated miner like Antminer) to solve mathematical problems. When the problem is solved, you will be rewarded some cryptocurrency.

That's just the gist of it. You can probably learn more about it by watching some YouTube videos.

Ah okay. Are these problems made specifically for this purpose or are they just really complex problems that are pretty much unsolvable without having the highest end hardware and have gone unsolved prior to this era?

Good question. I'm still a crypto noobie, but I do know that with higher end hardware you usually are more efficient in solving it (you get more hash power if you have 6 video cards running compared to having just 1)
---

CapnMuffin posted...

So theres 1000 bitcoins floating out there and no one can possibly claim them now?

It is actually way more than that. Article says that the guy's story isn't isolated incident there are between 2.78 million and 3.79 million bitcoin that are lost. Which is 17 to 23 per cent of the existing supply. As of this post that is like $41 Billion lost that can't be recovered in bitcoins history.
---

TheCEmanCometh posted...

CapnMuffin posted...

So theres 1000 bitcoins floating out there and no one can possibly claim them now?

It is actually way more than that. Article says that the guy's story isn't isolated incident there are between 2.78 million and 3.79 million bitcoin that are lost. Which is 17 to 23 per cent of the existing supply. As of this post that is like $41 Billion lost that can't be recovered in bitcoins history.

Well honestly if you think about all the paper money that has been lost or destroyed ever, that's likely a drop in the bucket.
---

Howl posted...

TheCEmanCometh posted...

CapnMuffin posted...

So theres 1000 bitcoins floating out there and no one can possibly claim them now?

It is actually way more than that. Article says that the guy's story isn't isolated incident there are between 2.78 million and 3.79 million bitcoin that are lost. Which is 17 to 23 per cent of the existing supply. As of this post that is like $41 Billion lost that can't be recovered in bitcoins history.

Well honestly if you think about all the paper money that has been lost or destroyed ever, that's likely a drop in the bucket.

That's a good point. I always throw pennies on the ground because fuck 'em
---