EAST, Texas (KLTV) – Bruce Gentry opened his Coinbase app for a routine check and saw a balance of $197 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were so many zeros on my screen, they actually went in behind some of the icons on the screen,\u201d Gentry said.<\/p>\n
The Titus County resident couldn\u2019t believe what he was looking at.<\/p>\n
\u201cBelieve me, I never see that many zeros unless I got a calculator and put them in myself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Coinbase tied the issue to a May 7 outage. The company called it \u201cpurely a display issue.\u201d The multi-billion dollar figure displayed on the screen wasn\u2019t actually in the account.<\/p>\n
What the money could have meant<\/p>\n
Gentry admitted he let himself dream about what life-changing money like that could mean.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, probably find myself a better position of where I live,\u201d Gentry said. \u201cAnd then probably set up some kind of charitable fund or something like that and start helping people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gentry said he never tried to withdraw it. That was the right call.<\/p>\n
According to SoFi:<\/p>\n
Legal realityMoney accidentally deposited into your account is not legally yours \u2014 it must be returnedKeeping or spending it can be considered theft, potentially leading to criminal charges, probation, or even prison timeWhat people should doReport it immediately to the bank \u2014 don\u2019t waitDon\u2019t touch, spend, move, or give away the moneyDocument all interactions (names, dates, follow-up emails)Monitor accounts regularly to catch errors earlyHow banks handle itBanks have 10\u201345 days to investigateBanks will find the error \u2014 through audits or the rightful owner reporting itThe bank can withdraw funds without permission, freeze accounts, or trigger overdrafts<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gave me $197 billion. Your company\u2019s worth 50-something billion,\u201d Gentry said.<\/p>\n
The balance vanished as fast as it showed up. Gentry said it\u2019s a reminder not everything on a screen is real.<\/p>\n
Experts say if something like this ever happens, the safest move is simple: don\u2019t touch it and report it immediately.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KLTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EAST, Texas (KLTV) – Bruce Gentry opened his Coinbase app for a routine check and saw a balance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[11541,26975,107721,13042,2604,27,29,28,107722],"class_list":["post-295426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-billionaire","tag-coinbase","tag-coinbase-glitch","tag-crypto","tag-east-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-titus-county-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}