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Man Searches Through Landfill For 8 Years For $350 Million Lost Bitcoin Wallet
https://www.iflscience.com ^ | DECEMBER 16, 2021 | Jack Dunhill

Posted on 12/21/2021 12:49:51 PM PST by Red Badger

Whilst doing some Spring cleaning back in 2013, a man threw his old PC hard drive into the trash, which quickly joined the mountain of rubbish at his local landfill site in Newport, Wales, UK. Little did he know at the time, that same hard drive contained a wallet filled with 7,500 Bitcoin, worth a cool £500,000 ($665,000) in the early crypto days. Now? That wallet is worth $357 million.

Once he realized, the man began a desperate search for the hard drive and has been searching ever since. Over the past eight years, James Howells has been crawling through mounds of rubbish in the hunt for his $350 million needle in a haystack – a haystack the size of a football pitch.

video at link...............

"I had a word with one of the guys down there, explained the situation. And he actually took me out in his truck to where the landfill site is, the current ditch they're working on. It's about the size of a football field, and he said something from three or four months ago would be about three or four feet down,” said Howells in an interview with the Guardian back in 2013.

"I'm at the point where it's either laugh about it or cry about it. Why aren't I out there with a shovel now? I think I'm just resigned to never being able to find it."

After that conversation, Howells all but resigned to the fact his fortune would never be claimed. But soon after, he began a search himself and still believes there is hope that the drive is both reachable and readable in its likely deteriorated state. In a last-ditch effort, he has now recruited residents of his local town to join the hunt, with the promise of millions if the search succeeds.

The odds are certainly stacked against him, made worse by the Newport council’s refusal for any volunteers to enter the site. Citing the ecological damage trawling through buried rubbish would cause, a lack of a permit to search the rubbish, and the sheer uncertainty that the hard drive even lays there, the council will not allow anyone to search the mounds, CNBC reports.

Sadly, if Howells can’t find the drive, the Bitcoin is lost forever.

Like most crypto, Bitcoin is untraceable and you couldn’t back-up your wallet in the early days of mining. This has led to unfortunate scenarios where people lose the physical drive the crypto is on, like Howells, or forget their password – such as the man who has just a few guesses left before he is locked out of a $240 million Bitcoin fortune.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet; History; Outdoors
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To: Red Badger

You fool it’s not on the hard drive ,LOL


41 posted on 12/21/2021 2:28:42 PM PST by butlerweave
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

This would most definitely be an occurrence repeated here
at least once. The main deterrent in moving forward.

When one has so little knowledge, it’s best to avoid any transaction until well schooled on the subject. That’s quite a nest egg to be lost and never seen again.


42 posted on 12/21/2021 2:37:01 PM PST by V K Lee (Our CONSTITUTION. Written with DIVINE assistence by very wise men. A document unlike any other.)
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To: V K Lee

... Had he offered it to me, I’d have gladly accepted (for the children, you understand)


43 posted on 12/21/2021 2:38:56 PM PST by aMorePerfectUnion (Fraud vitiates everything ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ࡚ࠢ࠘ ⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏⁻ )
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To: rlmorel

My m-i-l lost some very valuable jewelry which turned out, years later when it was found, to have slipped down into the couch cushions, way down where the arm of the couch is connected to the seat.

It was found by someone just checking before vacuuming it out, like every parent with kids does who doesn’t want to vacuum up toys or coins.


44 posted on 12/21/2021 2:49:57 PM PST by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: Red Badger

Most everything we do consists of taking things off of or out of the ground, and everything we take off of or out of the ground ends up...back on or in the ground.


45 posted on 12/21/2021 2:53:45 PM PST by SaxxonWoods
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To: pingman

Great story!


46 posted on 12/21/2021 3:47:18 PM PST by NautiNurse (Who will portray Alec Baldwin in the SNL skit? )
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To: Red Badger
Bitcoin is untraceable and you couldn’t back-up your wallet in the early days of mining.

False and false. Every bitcoin transaction in history is recorded in its open ledger. And bitcoin's code hasn't changed since Day 1. The dumpster diver here doesn't know the passkey to his public bitcoin address and may not even know the public address of his lost bitcoins. And he's not the only one. Thousands of bitcoins were lost forever in the early days of mining when they weren't worth anything.

47 posted on 12/21/2021 3:49:52 PM PST by Right_Wing_Madman
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To: NautiNurse

Thanks. I can certainly “feel his pain”, but only from the waist up!


48 posted on 12/21/2021 4:02:24 PM PST by pingman ("I ain't in no ways tarred.." of WINNING!)
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To: Red Badger

i hope they dug test holes looking for addresses and dates on letters, magazines etc


49 posted on 12/21/2021 4:18:49 PM PST by Chode (there is no fall back position, there's no rally point, there is no LZ... we're on our own. #FJB)
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To: Red Badger

That hard drive would be toast by now.


50 posted on 12/21/2021 4:34:40 PM PST by Revel
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To: Red Badger

bad mistake, very careless


51 posted on 12/21/2021 5:31:21 PM PST by Coleus
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To: metmom

Heh, funny you would say that. I am losing weight (just getting older) and my rings are floating all around...the one I lost recently, my wife found it between cushions in my favorite chair. The time before that, we had to go back to a parking lot and look around, and it had just fallen off and we found it. I don’t think we will find this one, though.

I have a ring guard on my wedding band, I would be heartbroken to lose that.


52 posted on 12/21/2021 6:14:29 PM PST by rlmorel (If the Biden Administration was only stupid or incompetent, some actions would benefit the USA.)
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To: max americana

I celebrate that you found it.


53 posted on 12/21/2021 6:41:38 PM PST by Candor7 ((Obama Fascism:http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html))
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To: CommerceComet

When Bitcoin first came out it was worth almost nothing. One guy famously bought a couple pizzas with thousands of bitcoin back in 2010. At today’s prices, those pizzas cost him more than $250 million each.


54 posted on 12/21/2021 7:06:22 PM PST by FLT-bird
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To: nascarnation
Give Jenny a call
55 posted on 12/22/2021 4:31:07 AM PST by wastedyears (The left would kill every single one of us and our families if they knew they could get away with it)
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To: rlmorel

I don’t know about other states, but Florida lottery scratch-off tickets expire 6 months after the game ends. We had some
winning tickets rejected because they were too old..................


56 posted on 12/22/2021 5:21:43 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: <1/1,000,000th%

UK........................


57 posted on 12/22/2021 5:25:10 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: SaxxonWoods

“True wealth comes from out of the ground.” - old adage.
Apparently this is true........................


58 posted on 12/22/2021 5:26:29 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

LOL, it doesn’t do those junkies any good when they look at the tickets under glass, though...:)


59 posted on 12/22/2021 9:32:55 AM PST by rlmorel (If the Biden Administration was only stupid or incompetent, some actions would benefit the USA.)
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