Bloke Accidentally Chucks Out Hard Drive Containing $113 Million In Bitcoin

Expensive mistake...


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One poor old bloke has accidentally tossed away over $113 million worth of Bitcoin.

British man James Howells, who works in IT, claims he netted himself 7,500 Bitcoin in 2013.

Back then the cryptocurrency was worth a fraction of what it is now - at the beginning of 2013 each Bitcoin cost around $13 before jumping to around $100 mid-year - and Howells made the most of it.

By the time he'd finished mining he'd ended up with 7,500 Bitcoin, worth a few thousand pounds.

"After I had stopped mining, the laptop I had used was broken into parts and sold on eBay," Howells told the Telegraph.

"However, I kept the hard drive in a drawer at home knowing it contained my Bitcoin private keys, so that if Bitcoin did become valuable one day I would still have the coins I had mined."

It did become valuable: one Bitcoin's now worth over $15,000 after the price exploded.

That means 7,500 Bitcoin adds up to exactly $113,764,293.44...not that Howells would know, after accidentally tossing the drive away.

"In mid-2013 during a clear-out, the hard drive – then worth a few hundred thousand pounds – was mistakenly thrown out and put into a general waste bin at my local landfill site, after which it was buried on site," he said.

He's considering digging up the landfill to see if he can find the hard drive.

At least the bloke who spent 10,000 Bitcoin on pizza a few years ago actually got something in return.

Ethan Meldrum

5 December 2017

Article by:

Ethan Meldrum




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