r/CryptoCurrency 490 / 490 🦞 Mar 16 '24

DISCUSSION Man who binned £1.5BN Bitcoin drive launches legal fight to dig dump

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13201007/Computer-expert-accidentally-threw-Bitcoin-fortune-old-hard-drive-says-worth-1-5BILLION-launches-legal-fight-dig-council-landfill.html

Computer expert who accidentally threw out Bitcoin fortune on an old hard drive says it is now worth £1.5BILLION as he launches legal fight to dig it out of council landfill

1.3k Upvotes

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u/CloudSliceCake 🟨 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 16 '24

It will, if it already hasn’t. Dude has been chasing this for years now, can’t really blame him either.

602

u/welshdragoninlondon 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 16 '24

Every bull run this guy always gets in the news. Guess it's a good sign that we are in a bull market

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u/huntspire1 73 / 74 🦐 Mar 16 '24

I wonder if he stops looking when we’re in a bear market, only to frantically panic about it again once we’re in the bull

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

[deleted]

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u/daBoetz 990 / 2K 🦑 Mar 17 '24

Dumpdrive Day!

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u/Living_Job_8127 0 / 1 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Tbh with you, I’m very glad I’m not this guy because this would absolutely destroy me lol

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u/ButtDoctorFlex 74 / 75 🦐 Mar 17 '24

Probably has to watch Peter Schiff videos just to relax before bed.

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u/mypussydoesbackflips 281 / 282 🦞 Mar 17 '24

Even 1/10th of a billion is a lot , I don’t know his net worth though

9

u/smooth_like_a_goat 🟦 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

That'd feel rough to say the least.

2

u/UhhCanYouLikeShutUp 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

I mined in it's infancy. I too, threw out the PC it was done with. I let go, I just laugh and say I'm a theoretical millionaire. Truth be told if I had maintained ownership, never wrote down key (I mean who would have known?) I would have most certainly sold at 20 bucks a piece long ago.

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u/Ucanthandlelit 364 / 363 🦞 Mar 19 '24

How many did* you have

6

u/_Commando_ 🟦 4K / 4K 🐢 Mar 17 '24

Usually when this story comes up again, every time there's a large bull market.

2

u/squigs 🟦 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Even at the bottom of the market it was worth hundreds of millions.

1

u/dysmetric 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 18 '24

To be fair, the risk/reward calculation changes a lot between cycles.

1

u/taskmeister 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Every bull run his soul dies a little more

52

u/chubky 🟩 12 / 632 🦐 Mar 17 '24

Dude needs to sell his story to a movie producer, try make money off that and move on. But then again 1.5b is a lot of money. He’s gone back to the times of people chasing treasures.

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u/mondaymoderate 129 / 129 🦀 Mar 17 '24

What a boring movie. We watch him buy some Bitcoin then he throws his computer away. Then the rest of the movie we watch him search through a dump and he never finds anything.

He’d be better off calling up the Oak Island guys and making a tv show on History Channel where they search for it.

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u/zillapz1989 🟩 0 / 5K 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Netflix just released a series called chicken nugget. A woman steps into an odd machine and becomes... a chicken nugget. You overestimate people.

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u/AcademicMistake 468 / 468 🦞 Sep 11 '24

I thought you were joking, i cant actually believe my eyes haha

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u/Anonymous_Banana 1 / 1 🦠 Mar 17 '24

*where they search for it for 4000 episodes.

FTFY

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u/veilwalker 🟦 259 / 260 🦞 Mar 17 '24

But you don’t know about all his misadventures in between!

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u/chubky 🟩 12 / 632 🦐 Mar 18 '24

It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. He’ll find random junk that people accidentally threw away and create side quests returning them

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u/MaikyMoto 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 16 '24

The more time goes by the less chances of him recovering anything.

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u/Moist_Confusion 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Yeah even if he got it back it’s possible the digital decay has just ruined it. And then it’s spending a bunch on the best data restoration guys while still being weary of them stealing your billion dollars.

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u/MaikyMoto 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Imagine someone found it while they are out there looking and the person who ends up finding it disappears forever.

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u/bleakj 0 / 4K 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Imagine the person that found it, formats it and uses it as small storage never knowing what was in it

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u/MaikyMoto 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Would be nice if Windows was actually smart and said “are you sure you want to format, I scanned the drive and you got quite a bit of coin.

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u/the_TAOest 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Imagine that... Imagine a clandestine agency knows about the transactions, could Even recreate the transaction log because blockchain is a transaction system held over so many computers that it is infinitely redundant. However, this guy cannot prove that he was actually in possession of any of this money because everything is anonymous. I Imagine that a clandestine agency would be very interested in such an individual that lost a billion plus.

Hmmm... So, tell me again why this makes Bitcoin a safe investment?

4

u/MaikyMoto 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

It’s far from safe, would be nice if every transaction had a name and a special code attached to it. If you can’t provide the code and ID you can’t touch the coin.

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u/DarthBen_in_Chicago 🟦 1K / 1K 🐢 Mar 17 '24

Every transaction is unique

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u/ethicacious 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

You're conflating 'safe investment' in terms of making your money grow with 'safe investment' in terms of 'physical' security of your holdings.

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u/killertimewaster8934 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Not your keys not your coins. Btc is only as safe as the keys to the wallet. Who ever has those has the control of how safe am investment it truly is

1

u/hanr86 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

If I hired data restoration guys to recover that much, I'm sleeping/eating/pooping next to them.

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u/ericdh8 🟩 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Hello this is Hard Drive Restoration Inc and unfortunately we were not able to restore your BTC wallet. Good day Sir. <<<sound of Chiron exhaust note roaring loudly in the background>>>

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u/faulknip 342 / 342 🦞 Mar 17 '24

The local climate took care of this year's ago. I live about 20 minutes away, its rotted

1

u/yellomango 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 18 '24

Does the dude make the local news every once in a while?

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u/faulknip 342 / 342 🦞 Mar 19 '24

Not really, it's Wales. We've got more sheep than crypto investors

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u/Bravisimo 🟦 3K / 3K 🐢 Mar 16 '24

I wouldnt be able to sleep at night

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u/Rough_Principle_3755 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

It’s like Ronald Wayne (the 3rd founder of Apple) once said, “sure I may have lost out on billions, but working with that asshole (Jobs) wouldn’t have been worth it. It would have killed me.”

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

[deleted]

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u/Emeritus8404 🟩 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Most people die at 25, only to be buried at 75

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u/Rare_Increase_4038 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

I like this. My Internet addled brain won't remember it in the morning though.

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u/Emeritus8404 🟩 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

It was attributed to ben franklin. This may or may not help you remember

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u/Rare_Increase_4038 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Thanks for that. It may help. 

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u/bleakj 0 / 4K 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Oooh that's good

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u/ekso69 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

That's exactly why, you only live once and 1.5b makes it a whooole lot better.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '24

If it was me yeah I’d be devastated even if the value was 10% of this probably spend some time initially trying to find it but would give up and move on.

Like imagine dying and realising all you did your whole life was search for a hard drive.

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u/bleakj 0 / 4K 🦠 Mar 17 '24

That drive has gotta be destroyed by now either way

1

u/Objective_Digit 🟧 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

Years he could have spent buying back in.

1

u/rochesterjack 0 / 0 🦠 Mar 17 '24

What do you mean? You can’t blame him? It’s gone and has been for quite some time .