Posted on 11/26/2024 3:15:58 PM PST by nickcarraway
Hafina Eddy-Evans says she took a hard drive to the tip having no idea it contained 8,000 bitcoins, mined by former partner James Howells back in 2009
Hafina Eddy-Evans has recounted the unfortunate moment she realised she had mistakenly thrown away a fortune, and how she broke the news to her former boyfriend that his wealth was lost. She admitted to disposing of an old hard drive at a Welsh dump, unaware it contained a trove of 8,000 Bitcoins, mined by James Howells in 2009, and now valued at a jaw-dropping £569million.
Howell is currently embroiled in a legal battle for permission to scour the Newport Council landfill site where Hafina claims she discarded the hard drive about ten years ago. Despite their separation, Hafina told Mail Online she hopes he succeeds in his quest—not for a share of the windfall but to finally silence him. She explained: "Yes, I threw away his rubbish, he asked me to. The computer part had been disposed of in a black sack along with other unwanted belongings and he begged me to take it away. I had no idea what was in it but I reluctantly dropped it off at the local tip on the way home from going on the school run."
James Howells, 38 (pictured) has launched a legal fight to retrieve the bitcoin wallet accidentally thrown out during an office clear out. (Image: WALES NEWS SERVICE) She added: "I thought he should be running his errands, not me, but I did it to help out. Losing it was not my fault. I'd love nothing more than him to find it. I'm sick and tired of hearing about it."
In his relentless pursuit, James Howells is taking the council to court, hoping to recover the digital 'key' to his Bitcoin fortune, believed to be entombed within 110,000 tons of trash under grass-covered land, reports the Mirror.
The 'lost' fortune, now valued at a staggering £569m in Bitcoin, has led the man to promise he'll give back 10 per cent to his local community. Ms Eddy-Evans, a mother of two, shared her conflicted feelings: "Part of me thinks the council should let the tip site be dug up, it's not helping his mental health with the thoughts of sitting in a fortune he can't get. But the other part thinks for him just to drop it and let it go."
She firmly stated: "I have no claim on whatever money he could be worth. He is the father of my two sons but I don't want a penny of his money." Join our WhatsApp news community here for the latest breaking news. You will receive updates from us daily.
A spokesperson for Newport City Council responded to the ongoing saga, saying: "[The] Council has been contacted multiple times since 2013 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to be in our landfill site."
They continued: "The council has told Mr Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit, and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area."
The council also clarified its position on the matter: "The council is the only body authorised to carry out operations on the site. Mr Howells's claim has no merit, and the council is vigorously resisting it."
Respectfully submitted, that's not how it works.
Any moron leaving bitcoin on a hard drive without a backup deserves to lose it. If he had kept his “keys”, he could have recovered it in seconds.
She probably still has the drive.
It does. Through an exchange like Coinbase.
But, I keep my stuff on a secure, “cold wallet.” It’s only attached to the internet when I want it to be. I have a secure back up. It’s kept in a fire proof safe.
As the price moves up, I will start to keep separate ones at a bank vault.
The whole idea behind Bitcoin was to be “your own banker.” But if someone got into it early, their silly little investment is worth a lot of money. I imagine that keeps some people up at night.
But, I assume if this Bitcoin is lost forever, then the remaining Bitcoin is worth a little more because of it, but I'm not sure how to calculate it. Is that right, Laz?
If I remember, in Goldfinger, Auric Goldfinger was trying to make all the gold in Fort Knox radioactive, to make the gold he had worth more. Stealing all the gold in Fort Knox would be logistically impossible.
So bitcoin inking really is like dumpster diving.
When does she plan to retrieve it? Can he see on the blockchain, if she ever sold it?
Mining not inking. New improved spellcheck is a nightmare.
How are encryptation keys created and transmitted? If it’s all done electronically, how do we know the NSA hasn’t had them all along?
There is probably millions in oil and coal buried thousands of feet below my land under a million tons of rock. If I promise 10% to the county, can I just drill and dig into the mountain to get it?
easy come, easy go ... the perils of something that isn’t anything ...
And he never backed it up? It takes up almost no space to do so. Moron. I know someone with 20 BTC and they have it backed up in 4 separate security boxes.
Yeah why leave your BTC key on an old hard drive? Write down your “24 words”/”seed phrase” and put that in your safe deposit box/safe place
Or the metal/non-paper version:
https://coincodex.com/article/23147/best-metal-crypto-wallets-for-seed-phrase-storage/
https://unchained.com/blog/what-is-a-bitcoin-seed-phrase/
Is there a recreation in diving after buried treasure, such as misplaced bitcoins? How complex is it to develop code to search for an encryption key? One more question, If one did discover the missing encryption key, could the 1s and 0s be turned into American Federal Reserve Notes?
Laz—does all the money go to you?
Lol.
I still have no idea what Bit Coin is, let alone how it is mined.......
I have developed a secret way to calculate bitcoin encryption keys, but it’s a secret. :)
Once you have the encryption keys you can transfer the Bitcoin to an exchange like Coinbase. Coinbas is just a financial account where you can purchase/store Bitcoin or sell them for US dollars then transfer the dollars to your bank account and do whatever you want with it.
I was thinking the same, supposing it's like a company taking some of it's stock out of circulation and voiding it (a stock buy-back). Every other share (coin) still in circulation is a bit more valuable, as it represents a larger share of the market value of the company, or in this case the whole-world "belief" in Bitcoin.
But the present day "velocity" of Bitcoin transactions (how much is traded every day) isn't going to change - it's already accounted for the poor guy's "lost" Bitcoin - so on that account it has, already, risen in value due to his loss. That's just by virtue of there being less available to circulate.
If he were to get his access back, the whole-world "belief" of Bitcoin value wouldn't necessarily change, he'd just suddenly own a percentage of it: 0.04% (8,000 out of 20,000,000 or so). Every other bitcoin ($92,313 today) would devalue by 0.04%, or by about $37.
The "full faith and credit" of the American dollar is also a "belief" system.
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