Didi Taihuttu and his family, who sold all their possessions for Bitcoin in 2017, continue to live a nomadic, "unbanked" lifestyle while traveling to over 40 countries. They live off their cryptocurrency fortune, storing wealth in secure, cold-storage "secret vaults" across four continents and have settled in Portugal due to its favorable crypto tax laws.
Alongside his wife Romaine and their three daughters, he left behind stability in the Netherlands and moved first into a campsite. Since then, the family has traveled through more than 40 countries, living off their crypto assets and promoting a lifestyle based on decentralization.
The family went living in Portugal because of the very positive tax rules on cryptocurrency.
James Howells, the man who accidentally threw away a hard drive with around 8,000 Bitcoins in 2013, has largely given up his decade-long, costly quest to dig it out of a Welsh landfill after courts repeatedly denied access due to environmental concerns, despite his offers to donate millions to the city of Newport. He's now shifting focus, exploring launching a cryptocurrency backed by the lost funds and advocating for digital asset security, though the lost fortune remains a famous "what if" in crypto history.
When Bitcoin was just $900 per coin, Didi Taihuttu sold his 2,500 square-foot house, 3 cars, and all of his belongings and invested everything he had into Bitcoin. Today alongside his wife, 2 kids & full time nanny all travel the world together and live in exotic destinations.
He is currently founding a new technology company focused on blockchain solutions and digital security known as Ceiniog Coin.
Why can't he recover the bitcoins? IronKey allows only 10 password attempts before permanently locking the device and deleting its contents. Thomas has already used eight of those tries, bit2me crypto news reports. With just two chances left, he's reluctant to risk losing everything forever.
James Howells accidentally threw away the hard drive that allows him to access his bitcoin. Buried deep in a Welsh landfill, beneath layers of years-old garbage, there is a hard drive that holds the key to almost $800 million in bitcoin – or so James Howells believes, after accidentally throwing the drive away in 2013.
Ricardo Benjamín Salinas Pliego, a billionaire from Mexico and one of the three richest people in the country, has put 70% of his wealth in bitcoin.
If Nakamoto is an individual person, then his bitcoin holdings make him one of the world's wealthiest people. His wallet, which has been untouched since 2010, holds an estimated 1.1 million bitcoins. At their July 14, 2025 price of more than $123,000 each, these were worth nearly $135 billion.
James Howells has quit his 12-year quest to recover 8,000 Bitcoin from a hard drive that was accidentally binned and sent to a landfill in Newport, Wales. Now, he's launching a Bitcoin L2 that claims to be “backed” by the lost funds, which he says a court recognized his legal ownership of.
As of 2025, an estimated 2.3 to 4 million BTC, or about 11 to 18 percent of Bitcoin's 21 million cap, are believed to be permanently lost. A 2024 River Financial report put the figure at 3.8 million, much of it tied to long-dormant addresses that have not moved coins in over a decade.
James Howells, the man who accidentally threw away a hard drive with thousands of Bitcoin (originally around 7,500 to 8,000 BTC) in 2013, has spent over a decade trying to get it back from a landfill in Wales, but has largely given up after numerous failed attempts and rejections from local authorities, with a judge ruling his quest unlikely to succeed, though he's explored tokenizing the assets and even buying the landfill site.
If you had the foresight, or simply the good luck, to have invested $1,000 in Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) a decade ago, and never sold, you would have more than $398,000 today.
As of 2026, approximately 1.32 million BTC remain to be mined out of the fixed 21 million BTC supply. That means over 93 % of all Bitcoin has already been mined, and the remainder will enter circulation gradually until about the year 2140, as mining rewards keep halving every four years.
Key Takeaways. The IRS treats cryptocurrency as property, meaning that when you buy, sell or exchange it, this counts as a taxable event and typically results in either a capital gain or loss. When you earn income from cryptocurrency activities, this is taxed as ordinary income.