The Dark Side Of Crypto: Over 600,000 ETH Worth $1.15B Vanishes Into Thin Air

A combination of bugs and human error has resulted in the loss of more than $1.15 billion worth of Ethereum ETH/USD, according to research conducted by Conor Grogan, who is the director of product strategy and business operations at Coinbase Global Inc. COIN.

Grogan categorized thousands of instances of Ethereum typos, user errors and buggy contracts, and so far, he found 636,000 ETH worth $1.15 billion-plus that are lost forever, which makes up 0.5% of all circulating supply.

He also pointed out that although it is a lot of Ethereum that can't be sold, it still significantly undershoots the actual lost/inaccessible ETH amount.

I've categorized thousands of instances of Ethereum typos, user errors, and buggy contracts

Thus far I've found 636,000 ETH worth $1.15B+ that are lost forever: 0.5% of all circulating supply

Crypto can be hard some times 😅
On the flip side thats a lot of ETH that cant be sold pic.twitter.com/YvCh2KmME5

— Conor (@jconorgrogan) March 20, 2023

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Some of the biggest losses in Ethereum include the Web3 foundation, which has 306K ETH ($538M) trapped due to the Parity Multisig bug.

Quadriga lost 60K Ethereum ($108M) due to a faulty contract.

Additionally, Akutars lost 11.5k Ethereum in an NFT-mint gone wrong, and people have collectively sent 24k Ethereum to a burn address for some unknown reason.

It is essential to note that this $1.15 billion-plus number only covers instances where Ethereum is locked forever and does not include lost private keys or forgotten Genesis wallets.

The research shows that crypto can be challenging, and users must take extra precautions to protect their assets.

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