🗑️💰 HE THREW 8,000 BITCOIN IN THE TRASH, AND TODAY THEY WOULD BE WORTH MORE THAN 700 MILLION DOLLARS
You wouldn't believe me if I told you there's a man who's been trying for 12 years to recover a hard drive he accidentally threw in the trash. James Howells, from Wales, had mined 8,000 $BTC in 2009, when they were worth almost nothing, and in 2013 he threw away the wrong hard drive while cleaning up. Today, those bitcoins are worth more than 700 million dollars and are still buried beneath tons of trash in a landfill.
The private key, which is like the unique password that grants access to a wallet, was stored only on that hard drive. After years of lawsuits and million-dollar offers to excavate, Howells gave up the search in 2025: the city council never gave him permission.
Opinion: this story is the best reminder that in crypto, there is no “forgot my password” option. If you lose the key, you lose everything, no matter how many millions it's worth.
Do you keep your keys in more than one safe place, or do you trust a single hard drive? #Bitcoin
You wouldn't believe me if I told you there's a man who's been trying for 12 years to recover a hard drive he accidentally threw in the trash. James Howells, from Wales, had mined 8,000 $BTC in 2009, when they were worth almost nothing, and in 2013 he threw away the wrong hard drive while cleaning up. Today, those bitcoins are worth more than 700 million dollars and are still buried beneath tons of trash in a landfill.
The private key, which is like the unique password that grants access to a wallet, was stored only on that hard drive. After years of lawsuits and million-dollar offers to excavate, Howells gave up the search in 2025: the city council never gave him permission.
Opinion: this story is the best reminder that in crypto, there is no “forgot my password” option. If you lose the key, you lose everything, no matter how many millions it's worth.
Do you keep your keys in more than one safe place, or do you trust a single hard drive? #Bitcoin
