Unlucky Gamer Upgrades PC and Loses $67,000 in Bitcoin


Undoubtedly in everyone’s lives there comes at least one moment where a sudden realisation hits and you think (and probably exclaim) “Ah f##k!”

Well one of those moments happened recently to Reddit user me_is_idiot (yes, that is an apt name) a month after the old computer they chucked into the bin contained around $67,000 worth of bitcoins. They regale their story in a TIFU (Today I F###ked Up) thread over on Reddit, which you can read in its entirety here.

It’s amazing 2010 laptops like this could hold so much money (image: thenextweb.com)

Basically, around 6 years ago when me_is_idiot was just a lowly student, they were making somewhat of a living from shady online advert dealing. Having heard about Bitcoin, they decided to invest and managed to accumulate around 150 of them. However, back in 2010, these were only worth around $11 dollars, and in their youthful arrogance, me_is_idiot decided they were a gigantic waste of time and promptly delegated them to solitary confinement in their computer’s hard drive.

Skip to around a semester later, and me_is_idiot gets a brand new shiny laptop with more RAM and a sweet ass 7200 HDD. Like your grandma, once the dementia had fully set in, me_is_idiot decided to stick his old hard drive into storage. Ensuring that their future self was aware of the folly of their youth, me_is_idiot also decided to write a sarcastic note and stuck it in alongside the old hard drive.

“Calm down grandma, we promise it’s just for a little while” (image: vibe.com)

Fast forwarding yet again, me_is_idiot has now graduated and is living the high flying lifestyle of a job paying decent(ish) money while living in a small apartment in the city. While unpacking in their new home, they discovered their old note in one of the boxes:

Source: Reddit thread
Source: Reddit thread

After having a small laugh with their previous self, me_is_idiot quickly realised that Bitcoin had actually increased in value by quite some margin since 6 years ago. Immediately following this epiphany, however, they promptly crapped a brick when they remembered they’d already chucked out the old hard drive with all of their glorious riches on it a month ago.

Sadly it seems like me_is_idiot’s Bitcoins may be gone for good, unless they want to trawl through a landfill for hours searching for it. It’s a shame, true, but at least they’re not worth the millions they had originally thought they’d thrown away. We can only hope that future generations learn from this story and do not fall victim to the same mistakes.