In 2010, a 16-year-old Chinese teenager named Zhou Tong bought Bitcoin for $10. Later, this self-taught programmer genius established the first cryptocurrency margin exchange Bitcoinica in just 4 days. The exchange's trading volume once reached $40 million per month, second only to Mt. Gox, the largest exchange at the time. However, due to three consecutive hacker attacks, Bitcoinica eventually lost 101,554 BTC.

Recently, Rizzo, a foreign blogger on the X platform, recounted this legendary story. PANews has compiled the original text and will tell the dramatic story of how the teenager lost 102,000 bitcoins, which are now worth $6.8 billion.

At the age of 16, Chinese teenager Zhou Tong bought a bitcoin for $10 and became intrigued by the idea that the currency could be sent around the world. He told all his friends about bitcoin because he thought it was so "cool."

At the time, buying Bitcoin in 2011 was very difficult, took time and relied on intermediaries. The largest exchange at the time, Mt. Gox, was also often offline. Shortly after Zhou Tong bought Bitcoin, Mt. Gox even had a flash crash, and the price of Bitcoin fell to $0.01.

Zhou Tong was not discouraged by the falling prices. The self-taught programmer built an exchange called Bitcoinica in just four days. This was not just another Bitcoin exchange, it allowed margin trading so traders and miners could speculate on future prices. Users could bet up to 50 Bitcoins at once.

After going online, Bitcoinica's trading volume soared rapidly, with monthly trading volume reaching $40 million, second only to Mt. Gox. As for Zhou Tong, he made $10,000 in the first two weeks, equivalent to about 2,000 bitcoins.

However, Bitcoinica soon encountered some resistance. Some users were concerned about Zhou's age, while others were concerned about his lack of experience. As the value of Bitcoin increased, users began to pay more and more attention to the security measures taken by exchanges to protect Bitcoin.

Bitcoinica continued to trade hundreds of thousands of bitcoins a month. But when investors approached him in late 2011, Zhou quickly sold the company. He was still in school and studying for exams.

The new owner, Wendon Group, had some doubts about Zhou Tong's work. So they sought the help of experienced Bitcoin developers to conduct a proper audit for the exchange. One of them was Amir Taaki, an outspoken hacker activist who was passionate about WikiLeaks and 3D printed guns.

Wendon Group wanted to prove to Zhou Tong and Amir that they were serious - they made a massive investment. They even spent $1 million to buy the industry's most sought-after domain name: Bitcoin.com.

However, Bitcoinica was soon hacked, and in March 2012, it lost 43,554 bitcoins. The loss caused such a stir that it was even permanently etched on the cover of the second issue of Bitcoin Magazine.

The situation worsened. In May and July of the same year, Bitcoinica's servers were attacked twice more. Hackers stole a total of 58,000 bitcoins. There were no hardware wallets or multi-signatures at the time: all the hackers had to do was reset a few passwords. (Note: The number of BTC lost in the original X platform post is 99,000, which may be an incomplete calculation.)

Who is responsible for the attacks? Zhou Tong? Wendon Group? Amir? Users don’t care. They want to get their lost bitcoins back. Users like @rogerkver lost more than 24,000 BTC.

Today, it remains a mystery what happened. Zhou Tong’s summary of the situation is that Bitcoin users and businesses need to take their personal security seriously.

As a result of these attacks, Zhou Tong’s reputation collapsed overnight. His name became one of the earliest viral Bitcoin memes. Among the OGs, the term “Zhou Tonged” is still used to describe investors who have been robbed and deceived.

Zhou Tong's final move was to take out 1,000 Bitcoins and invest them in rare Casascius coins. In fact, he owns one of only three of these rare collectibles, which are worth more than $60 million today. Then, he left the industry...

Exchange hacks continue to this day. That’s why serious Bitcoin investors are advised to use hardware wallets or multi-signature escrow. It is estimated that more than 1 million Bitcoins, worth $65 billion, were lost in exchange hacks. Bitcoinica is the third largest loss of all time in terms of the total number of lost Bitcoins.

Today, Bitcoinica remains a reminder of the $6.8 billion in lost bitcoins. It is also a lesson for users to take their custody seriously and use multi-signature security measures.