James Howells remembers the day he did a summer clear out of old computer hardwarde while a nagging voice in his head told him he may regret this.
Howells is now searching for a Dell hard drive somewhere under mountains of rubbish at a landfill in Newport Wales that contains US$6.9 million worth of bitcoins.
The IT worker told the Guardian that he mined the Bitcoins in 2009 when the crypto-currency was relatively unknown, easy to mine and relatively worthless. Howells was able to mine 7,500 bitcoins on his computer before his girlfriend told him to stop since the noise and heat from the old machine was distracting.
The computer broke in 2010 after some liquid was poured on it. Howells hung onto the hard drive until eventually deciding to toss it:
“You know when you put something in the bin, and in your head, say to yourself ‘that’s a bad idea’? I really did have that.”
“I don’t have an exact date, the only time period I can give – and I’ve been racking my own brains – is between 20 June and 10 August. Probably mid-July”.
Comments
James
I found it!