Man Who Threw Away Hard Drive With Bitcoin Worth Over $86 Million Wants To Dig Up Landfill Site


BitCoin


A few months ago we shared with you the story of Campbell Simpson, the man who threw away a hard drive that had Bitcoin on it that is now worth $16 million. The tragic story of James Howells is much more excruciatingly lamentable especially now that Bitcoin is worth $11,488. He threw away over $80 million worth of Bitcoin and now he wants to try to find it. And you thought you had some regrets.

James Howells follows the record-breaking pace of Bitcoin recently, not because he wants to invest, but rather because he had 7,500 Bitcoin back in 2013, which was about $130 at the time. Based on the recent surge by nearly all cryptocurrencies, Howells’ Bitcoin would now be worth $86,145,300. You can file that one under “Life’s Biggest Regrets.” The British man threw away the hard drive that had all of his digital currency on it. Howells, who is now an IT worker, is considering digging in the landfill site to find his modern-day buried treasure.

Howells started mining for Bitcoin in 2009, but forgot about the drive after he was “distracted by family life and moving house.” “After I had stopped mining, the laptop I had used was broken into parts and sold on eBay. 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,” Howells said. “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.”

Now Howells wants to attempt to find his missing Bitcoin worth tens of millions by digging up a landfill to find a hard drive from 2013. Yeah, that won’t be impossible or anything. “A modern landfill is a complex engineering project and digging one up brings up all sorts of environmental issues such as dangerous gasses and potential landfill fires,” he said. “It’s a big, expensive and risky project.” Howells should really just stop torturing himself and forget all about Bitcoin and the nearly $100 million dollars that he could have had and the incredible luxurious lifestyle that people only dream of where he wouldn’t have to work another day in his life and all of his material wants and desires would be fulfilled. This kind of regret can eat away at you.

[Independent]