Man who ‘threw away’ bitcoin haul now worth over $80m wants to dig up landfill site 'It’s a big, expensive and risky project,' says James Howells, from Newport

in bitcoin •  7 years ago 

From The Independent


A British man says he accidentally threw away over $80 million worth of bitcoin.

James Howells, an IT worker from Newport, claims to have unintentionally dumped 7,500 bitcoin in mid-2013.

He is now planning to find them, but isn’t sure how, as he believes the hard drive he saved them to is currently buried in a landfill site.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/bitcoin-value-james-howells-newport-landfill-hard-drive-campbell-simpson-laszlo-hanyecz-a8091371.html

I have learned not to think about how much the bitcoins I've spent over the years would be worth now. You just have to keep moving forward and earning more. However this guy may have a profitable venture if they can recover those coins. It would really suck if he spends millions of dollars and bitcoin experiences a crash when he finally finds them.

Leave your thoughts in the comments below.


Follow @contentjunkie to stay up to date on more great posts like this one.

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

I'm always sceptical whether such stories are true or just made up to get some traffic. Assuming the guy is legit, he's chances of recovering the disk are none.
He's not even sure what happened to the disk, he just assumed it was accidently thrown away.
Plus, he won't be able to prove his ownership, so those bitcoins are as much 'his' as anyone elses.

Who's to say it's in the landfill? It would be a very risky adventure paying to dig up an entire landfill to find a hard drive. What if the hard drive is smashed to pieces or is full of dirt and doesn't work.

How exactly would he recover them? The coins don't live on the hard drive. They live on the blockchain. So he had them in a wallet that he knows the password to? Maybe? I dunno.

Assuming the hard drive isn't damaged beyond repair they could be exported?

haha, this stuff makes me laugh.

what a dipshit

Good luck. How do you unintentionally dump your bitcoins? This is an interesting article.

Great effort @contentjunkie

Damn I couldn't imagine the feeling,Its like loosing a retainer in the ocean. One of my friends had 300 of them way back, now he is pissed because he sold them at $100

regret is always at the end of every actions. i doubt it if he can still find that hard drive. but i am gonna be happy for him if he found it.

This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the first half of Dec 05. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $11.88 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.

See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 05 - Part I. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.

If you are the author and would prefer not to receive these comments, simply reply "Stop" to this comment.

You got a 1.14% upvote from @upme requested by: @contentjunkie.
Send at least 1 SBD to @upme with a post link in the memo field to receive upvote next round.
To support our activity, please vote for my master @suggeelson, as a STEEM Witness

This post has received gratitude of 0.95 % from @appreciator thanks to: @contentjunkie.

This post has received a 0.92 % upvote from @buildawhale thanks to: @contentjunkie. Send at least 1 SBD to @buildawhale with a post link in the memo field for a portion of the next vote.

To support our daily curation initiative, please vote on my owner, @themarkymark, as a Steem Witness