In 2012, the man in the photo stole an amount of Bitcoin valued at $4.8 Trillion today.

His name is James Zhong

And the story you are about to see next is enough to create a five-season series 🧵👇

Robberies, parties, drugs, luxuries... and more things that you will discover:

James Zhong, better known as Jimmy Zhong, was born on May 24, 1990, in Georgia, United States.

Despite being born into a middle-class family, he had a quite hard childhood, as he suffered a lot of bullying at the schools he attended.

He was a very shy, lonely, and insecure boy. He didn't know what to do to build relationships and gain self-confidence.

In 2008, he entered the University of Georgia to study computer science, which was his passion and what he did best.

Two years later he discovered Bitcoin and decided to specialize in this, especially in mining.

Before continuing, you need to know what Silk Road is.

It was a page on the dark net where you could buy anything illegal you could imagine. Purchases were primarily made with BTC to ensure anonymity.

Now we continue.

Jimmy, in 2012 he was on Silk Road and discovered a flaw that would allow him to generate a lot of Bitcoin for free.

Instead of communicating it for compensation, he decided to turn to the dark side.

It is said that he took advantage of this error for up to three years, continuously withdrawing a huge amount of bitcoins that did not belong to him. He created several accounts and withdrew them to many different wallets, to ensure more anonymity and security.

Once I managed to steal those Bitcoins, I used Mixers to erase the trace of those coins and in this way I could spend the Bitcoin without anyone knowing.

In total, Jimmy managed to steal about 51,680 BTC, valued today at 4,800,000,000 dollars.

At the time of the theft, the value was about 600,000 dollars, a very high figure, but one that does not come close to that of today.

Good old Jimmy decided to hide all the keys to his wallets around his house, even inside a Cheetos popcorn container.

In those moments, the rise and fall of his life began. He lived the American dream but at extreme levels.

He started exchanging Bitcoin for Dollars to begin spending them. But he only had one thing on his mind, to be the coolest of all and to get the others to notice him, especially the girls.

Since then, Jimmy spent huge amounts on cars, clothes, watches, private parties, yachts, dr*gs… He had a dream luxurious life, except for a couple of things, of course.

He started to have a lot of social success. He went from being the shy one that everyone laughed at to the colleague that everyone wanted to have.

But the most important thing for him was that he went from not talking to any girls to suddenly dating many different ones. He felt special and loved for the first time in his life.

His life was based on throwing brutal parties, buying luxuries, and being with his new friends.

According to a friend I had, he spent all day boasting about his luxuries and his black card, which is a credit card that only the wealthy have.

When someone asked him what he did for a living, Jimmy would respond that he mined Bitcoin at the beginning of it all, and that's where he made all his money.

In 2016 he had his first scare. He was arrested for possession of c0caine. As I mentioned before, he spent part of the money on dr0gs to give away or use at the parties he organized.

Finally, nothing else happened. He continued with his luxurious life as if nothing mattered.

Until in 2019, he made the most expensive mistake of his life. A very stupid mistake that ended everything.

On any given night, they broke into his house and stole a briefcase with 4,000 dollars in cash and a device.

And he had no better idea than to call the police... Who went to his house and upon realizing that he had the briefcase very well hidden, they began to suspect why he had so much cash and hidden...

They started an investigation

Until 2021, as a curiosity, just the day before the ATH of Bitcoin, the FBI went to Jimmy's house where they found all kinds of luxuries, more than 600,000 dollars in cash, gold and silver bars… and most importantly, billions of dollars in Bitcoin.

Jimmy confessed everything, he had no problem telling it. In fact, he told the judge that he knew what he was doing was wrong, but that this period of lust made him feel important and that he was worth something...

It is sad to see how there are people who have suffered so much mentally and who need external validation to feel valuable.

Finally, he was sentenced to 1 year in prison. A very criticized amount. Some argue that it is very little, since he stole a gigantic amount of Bitcoin.

On the contrary, most argue that it is a lot because he stole that money from criminals, it was Bitcoins from Silk Road users and when he was caught he "returned" almost all of it.

And you, what do you think? Is it a lot or a little?

I hope this story has been, at the very least, interesting ;)