In The Big Bang Theory, Bitcoin is featured in Season 11, Episode 9, titled “The Bitcoin Entanglement,” which aired on November 30, 2017. The plot revolves around Leonard, Howard, and Raj realizing that seven years earlier (around 2010), they mined Bitcoin using Howard’s old laptop. At the time of the episode, they note that a single Bitcoin is worth about $5,000—a figure that reflects Bitcoin’s value earlier in 2017, though by the air date, it had risen to around $10,000.

The story unfolds with the group trying to recover their lost cryptocurrency. Flashbacks show that Sheldon was initially part of the Bitcoin mining plan but was excluded by the others due to his concerns about tax implications and his typical overbearing nature. In revenge, Sheldon later secretly transferred the Bitcoin from Leonard’s laptop to a Batman flash drive on Leonard’s keychain. The twist comes when Leonard reveals he lost the flash drive years ago. A final flashback shows Stuart finding it in his comic book store and planning to wipe it and sell it for $10, unaware of its valuable contents. As a result, no one ends up with the Bitcoin.

The episode mixes humor with nostalgia, using flashbacks to revisit the characters’ lives seven years prior, while also poking fun at the idea of a lost fortune in a then-emerging technology. It’s a lighthearted take on Bitcoin’s rise in mainstream awareness, though some details—like the ease of mining multiple Bitcoins in seconds on a basic laptop in 2010—are exaggerated for comedic effect. Today, with Bitcoin’s price far exceeding $5,000 (as of March 23, 2025, it’s significantly higher), the episode serves as a funny time capsule of crypto’s early pop culture moment.