Tip search for £4m bitcoins computer
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-s...wales-25134289

A man is searching a landfill site hoping to find a computer hard drive he threw away which is now worth over £4m.

"A Newport man has been searching a landfill site in south Wales hoping to find a computer hard drive he threw away which is now worth over £4m.

James Howells's hard drive contains 7,500 bitcoins - which is a virtual form of currency for use online.

It had sat in a drawer for years and he had forgotten it contained the bitcoins, which he obtained in 2009 for almost nothing, when he threw it out.

But this week, a single bitcoin's value hit $1,000 (£613) for the first time.

It means Mr Howells's collection is now worth $7.5m (£4.6m).

A few years ago Mr Howells, who works in IT, had dismantled his computer after spilling a drink on it.

"I stored a couple of parts away like the hard drive, and the rest of the bits and pieces which were still working I sold for spares," he told BBC Radio Wales.

"I kept the hard drive in a draw in my office for three years without a second thought - totally forgot about bitcoin all together. I had been distracted by family life and moving house."

"Fast forward to 2013 which is when I had a clearout of my old IT equipment - I hadn't used this drive for over three years, I believed I'd taken everything off it... so it got thrown in the bin."

Mr Howells later realised what was left on the hard drive.

He added: "I had been hearing a few stories of a chap from Norway who had bought a number of coins for a very low price and had sold them for a high price and that's when I got back into checking the price and seeing what I'd done.

"When I found out what the price was, the penny dropped and I realised the coins I have 'mined' were on the drive I had thrown away.

"There was not a lot I could do."

Mr Howells checked all of his back up files but could not locate the coins so went to the landfill site in south Wales.

"When I went to the tip the manager took me up to the current landfill site and when I saw it - it's about the size of a football field - my first thought was 'no chance'," he said.

"The manager explained that things that were sent to landfill three or four months ago could be three to five feet deep.

"He confirmed my worst fears when he said that.

"He did mention that when people were investigating for evidence, they turn up with 15 to 20 people in full protective gear with diggers and dogs as well.

"The truth is I haven't got the funds or ability to make that happen at the moment without a definite pay cheque at the end of it."

In a letter to the US Senate committee, the FBI said that it recognised virtual currencies offered "legitimate financial services" but added they could be "exploited by malicious actors".

In October, the world's first bitcoin ATM opened in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allows users to exchange bitcoins for cash and vice-versa.

The virtual currency has also been quickly adopted in China, where one exchange - BTC China - is said to be the most active globally.

Bitcoin's use in China has been attributed to it being an effective way of reliably getting money out of the country.

Various bitcoin exchanges have been set up around the world, with MTGox - one of the virtual currency's major exchanges - being the most prominent.

Mr Howells added: "I still believe in bitcoin. I believe its value is going to go much, much higher and it's still in its early days.

"As soon as access to bitcoin is opened up to the general public I think a lot more people will be using it, hence the price will increase further."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-s...wales-25134289

Tulip <<<<<<<<<< only word to describe where this junk is going

what a stupid IT worker.
he threw away his hdd without taking backup ?

Id go help for % if we found it

In her 2007 scholarly analysis Tulipmania, Anne Goldgar states that the phenomenon was limited to "a fairly small group", and that most accounts from the period "are based on one or two contemporary pieces of propaganda and a prodigious amount of plagiarism".

Peter Garber argues that the bubble "was no more than a meaningless winter drinking game, played by a plague-ridden population that made use of the vibrant tulip market."

Any economic fallout from the bubble was very limited.

Goldgar, who identified many prominent buyers and sellers in the market, found fewer than half a dozen who experienced financial troubles in the time period, and even of these cases it is not clear that tulips were to blame.

lolllllllll imagine that shit, he will find hard in million years now

He could do with a detector that will find alloys or magnets or whatever a hard drive is made from.

Life's tough. Life's even tougher when you're stupid.

watch him find it and then get it running only to realize it's not the one with the bitcoin addys.

hahahahahahahahahah

:1orglaugh:thumbsup

This. I still have backups from the PS/2 computer I used in 1994. Storage is cheap.

poor sap