The Top Five Crypto Fails of All Time!

Welcome back! We’ve got a treat for you here, or is it a trick? It’s hard to tell with some of these crypto fails, and, of course, there were so many crazy tales from the cryptosphere that we couldn’t possibly write about them all. We’ve chosen five that the Cryptopulse team thought were pretty darn hilarious!

Listen to this story in podcast form here.

10,000 Bitcoins… for pizza?!

May 22nd, 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid a fellow ‘Bitcoin Talk’ forum user 10,000BTC for two Papa John’s pizzas. At this time, Bitcoin was only about a year old, and all of those BTC were worth just $25. At today’s price, that’s about £66.5m for our British readers, and $92m in US dollars. Staggering.

This is largely considered the first real-world Bitcoin transaction, and is celebrated as such each May 22nd. For most people reading, this is pretty hilarious, at Laszlo’s expense!

“It wasn’t like bitcoins had any value back then, so the idea of trading them for a pizza was incredibly cool” – Hanyecz in 2013, denying the fail.

Millions lost when Mt Gox collapsed

This fail is much worse than £66m pizza – this fail cost nearly half a billion.

In February 2014, then largest crypto-trading platform ‘Mt Gox’ went bankrupt and shut down, losing 850,000 bitcoins and £22m of user cash. The Tokyo-based exchange pointed the finger towards hackers who exploited a software security weakness, but later revealed they had found 200,000 of the coins.

The fail deepens. The chief of Mt Gox, Mark Karpelés was arrested, accused of embezzlement of user funds, and is largely responsible for the total fail that left 127,000 people out of pocket and claiming money back. He managed to avoid prison, but must remain in Japan.

Karpelés is a bit of a failure specialist as it happens, having been caught ‘pirating’ servers several times in France, and being accused by Ross Ulbricht, creator of the Silk Road, as the true mastermind behind the dark web marketplace.

Where did HODL come from?

If you caught Episode 3 of our podcast, you’ll know all about HODL, and the story that accompanies it. But if not, or if you want further detail, here’s the post that led to the crypto-culture slang.

‘I type d that tyitle twice because I knew it was wrong the first time.  Still wrong. w/e. GF’s out at a lesbian bar, BTC crashing WHY AM I HOLDING? I’LL TELL YOU WHY.  It’s because I’m a bad trader and I KNOW I’M A BAD TRADER. Yeah you good traders can spot the highs and the lows pit pat piffy wing wong wang just like that and make a millino bucks sure no problem bro.  Likewise the weak hands are like OH NO IT’S GOING DOWN I’M GONNA SELL he he he and then they’re like OH GOD MY ASSHOLE when the SMART traders who KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY’RE DOING buy back in but you know what?  I’m not part of that group. When the traders buy back in I’m already part of the market capital so GUESS WHO YOU’RE CHEATING day traders NOT ME~! Those taunt threads saying “OHH YOU SHOULD HAVE SOLD” YEAH NO SHIT.  NO SHIT I SHOULD HAVE SOLD. I SHOULD HAVE SOLD MOMENTS BEFORE EVERY SELL AND BOUGHT MOMENTS BEFORE EVERY BUY BUT YOU KNOW WHAT NOT EVERYBODY IS AS COOL AS YOU. You only sell in a bear market if you are a good day trader or an illusioned noob.  The people inbetween hold. In a zero-sum game such as this, traders can only take your money if you sell.

so i’ve had some whiskey

actually on the bottle it’s spelled whisky

w/e

sue me

(but only if it’s payable in BTC)’

Explanation – Man gets drunk, decided to hold his crypto, misspells the title and becomes bitcoin folklore and slang!

Guy threw out 7,500 bitcoin in a hard drive

Well, at least Laszlo got two pizzas for his £45m loss! In terms of crypto fails, this is a bad one.

Meet James Howells, from Newport, Wales, who threw out 7,500 bitcoins. Howells bought his Bitcoin back in 2009, when the tech was very new, and after years he simply forgot about it, until the boom. Then he remembered, oh boy, did he remember!

After spilling a hot drink on his computer, he simply threw it away. Now, he’s on a mission to get it back, and he says that it should be easier than if he’d lost a lottery ticket, in theory. Quite optimistic there James…

He’s on the lookout for investors who will help him excavate his local landfill to try and find the bitcoins, in exchange for a cut.

“I could go back to work for the rest of my life but then I would always be thinking about it,” Mr Howells said. “At least if I give it a shot, then it’s checked, the box is checked, I tried.”

Bitcoin and CoinDaddy

We couldn’t decided which of these was a more tragic crypto fail – a 79 year-old rapper called Bitcoin, or a rapper who ‘spits’ exclusively about different cryptocurrencies called CoinDaddy.

Where do we even begin with this one?

Bitcoin

He raps about not having a cell phone, and that he still uses a landline, and he publicly addressed Donald Trump in what can only be described as… strange (link: viewer discretion advised). Bitcoin also has a song about smoking weed for his glaucoma. Why he is called Bitcoin we still don’t know, but he claims that whilst making a pilot for a new tv series, he was asked for make a rap music video for a sketch, and it evolved from there.

One thing that is not part of our crypto fails concept, is the message behind his music, which is to help himself live longer and to remind other elderly people that they are still capable of doing the things they enjoy.

Learn about Bitcoin here.

CoinDaddy

Self-described as a bitcoin entertainer, personality and crypto-rapper, CoinDaddy is the sort of cryptospherical (it’s a new word) evolution that nobody in their right mind envisioned.

Laugh at him all you like, his shameless approach to ‘stardom’ has earned him a lot of crypto, a lot of YouTube revenue, and a lot of fans. He lives in the California Bay Area too, so he can’t be doing too badly!

In CoinDaddy’s cover of Eminem’s Stan, he does a pretty good job of writing a letter to Charlie Lee, founder of Litecoin. Here’s the chorus…

‘Charlie Lee just sold I’m wondering why

I bought Litecoin at all

The morning FUD drove down the price so

Now I can’t sell at all

And even if I could I would still just hold

With my limit on the wall

To remind me that I’ve got these bags, I’ve got these bags’

What did we miss?

We want to hear your favorite crypto fails. Please email us at hello@cryptopulse.co.uk