Altcoins Talks - Cryptocurrency Forum
Learning & News => News related to Crypto => Topic started by: Ambatman on February 15, 2025, 05:30:51 PM
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https://indiandefencereview.com/after-12-years-of-failed-attempts-the-man-who-lost-his-hard-drive-containing-742m-in-bitcoin-is-forced-to-abandon-his-search/#google_vignette
The news can be accessed above about a Man that lost its Hard drive during cleanup.
It's persistence shows he never kept his private key well.
Many people take protection of private keys for granted either by screenshotting Or even saving them in emails.
Worse are the ones that believe that as long as they are with their phones they are still in control of their funds.
Even while using a non custodial wallet, if your seedphrase isn't properly secured, your funds are not in your control.
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I think 12 years is quite far to lose hope as it's very hard to find such a thing in a dump yard, just not scrap yard but a waste yard where things can be easily subjected to melting them down for a new product. Most times at the dump yard or scraped yards after several years, it could be from 8-10 years above things over there such as metals and any other useful material can be used to for molding of things, and there are some companies that usually comes to purchase those waste products and whenever they buy something like this it's easier for them not to have ideas of what they have bought from scraped yard and they could easily turn them into heat and get them melted.
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well he can consider it a donation and his name will be forever on the internet about the guy who lost his drive with a ton of BTC. such as waste but it is what it is.
there was an article about quantum computer able to recover its coins in the wallet and just put it in circulation so that no BTC will be unused. i know its kind of a news that makes BTC insecure asset but that was just a story. if its true though, its going to be quite a bummer.
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well he can consider it a donation and his name will be forever on the internet about the guy who lost his drive with a ton of BTC. such as waste but it is what it is.
there was an article about quantum computer able to recover its coins in the wallet and just put it in circulation so that no BTC will be unused. i know its kind of a news that makes BTC insecure asset but that was just a story. if its true though, its going to be quite a bummer.
Well that donation would be I think the most tragic and painful that ever happened to that owner because we all know that $700 million worth of assets isn't just a wealth but also a life full of more than just a financial freedom to the owners entire family's generation. I am still hopeful for the owner to recover it and tell us his unforgettable story with his Bitcoins.
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Many people take protection of private keys for granted either by screenshotting Or even saving them in emails.
Worse are the ones that believe that as long as they are with their phones they are still in control of their funds.
This line really hit my nerve and surprised me as well because I had this mindset from a long time and recently I started to travel for work from places which are not good and I usually travel in wrong times too haha like early morning and in evening when there is no one on those roads and places. Well this made me think that, what if I lost my phone I would lose everything.
Therefore I made some pre-cautions and I will suggest everyone to keep this line for sure and don't under estimate it because if you lost phone you should have proper measures in mind to do to undo the lose.
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Therefore I made some pre-cautions and I will suggest everyone to keep this line for sure and don't under estimate it because if you lost phone you should have proper measures in mind to do to undo the lose.
With the amount and numbers of stories stirring the internet concerning lost funds via misplaced private keys and stuff, it now seems more like storing your keys gets harder as time goes by. The internet hasn't been a good place to store your keys since the beginning but it seems to be getting even worse.
For storing offline many vulnerabilities come up when you fail to keep your Hodlings as secret as possible especially if you have huge amounts. You may be safe from hackers when you store offline but you aren't safe from theft and burglary.
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After long 12 years, the popular saga of James Howells may have finally ended...and though I am feeling sorry for his failure to get back that hard drive with mined Bitcoin worth millions. I think the time has come for him to accept his fate as it would be so impossible to dig the thrash for it. At least, he made it to one of the many colorful personalities connected with Bitcoin. The biggest takeaway here is to never be lazy in securing everything you own most especially cryptocurrency as losing the key or seed phrases means losing access to something that is and will be so valuable. I am hoping that Quantum Computing will be the technology to get back the lost coins...though I am really also doubting it as it might create chaos in the market. Now, I am advising James Howells to instead capitalize on his story by licensing it to movies, books, documentaries and the likes as he can easily create a goldmine in there - and there is no more need to dig the heap of decades-old thrash.
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Many people take protection of private keys for granted either by screenshotting Or even saving them in emails.
Worse are the ones that believe that as long as they are with their phones they are still in control of their funds.
Even while using a non custodial wallet, if your seedphrase isn't properly secured, your funds are not in your control.
i think you are quite confused mate a hardware wallet is an offline storage of your coins and he did not take a screenshot of his private keys nor did he save it in his email he stored it in a hard drive which is smart if only he took care of it well
he accidentally gave it away and it landed on a landfill and this was 12 years ago when bitcoin is not what it is right now so i can just imagine his regret but anyway cold or hot wallet both needs to be taken care of well
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i think you are quite confused mate a hardware wallet is an offline storage of your coins and he did not take a screenshot of his private keys nor did he save it in his email he stored it in a hard drive which is smart if only he took care of it well
he accidentally gave it away and it landed on a landfill and this was 12 years ago when bitcoin is not what it is right now so i can just imagine his regret but anyway cold or hot wallet both needs to be taken care of well
No I think is the other way round.
Reread the post and you would realised I'm talking about two different things.
I was emphasising on the fact that individuals that chose to keep/protect their private key do such with the aforementioned methods which I'm stating isn't safe.
This line really hit my nerve and surprised me as well because I had this mindset from a long time and recently I started to travel for work from places which are not good and I usually travel in wrong times too haha like early morning and in evening when there is no one on those roads and places. Well this made me think that, what if I lost my phone I would lose everything.
Been there Before, mine was I lost my phone and was lucky that it was returned that's when I realised the irrelevant risk I have been taking.
What I do now is I usually delete my wallet app in case another gain access since I can tell roughly how much is in it through explorer.
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James is “famous” in the Bitcoin community, there have been news stories about him trying to recover his hard drive from the city dump for years
Unfortunately this case is all but lost and I'm sorry for him, it must be a horrible feeling to have thrown millions of dollars in the trash, literally
It must be hard to get on with your life without thinking about your fortune every day
The reality is that these BTC are like Satoshi's BTC, they were donated to the network, and for us it's a great lesson to always protect our seeds and have a backup so we don't lose access to our wallet
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After 12 years, even if James found that hard drive, I highly doubt it would help him get his coins back. The deterioration that the device must have suffered (especially humidity and corrosion) would make it impossible to recover the private keys, although it is also possible that it had a small chance, computer forensics has improved a lot in recent years. What I can't understand is why he has been denied access for 12 years. Maybe the hard drive isn't where James thinks it is... I know it sounds like a conspiracy or a spy movie, but there are people who would do anything for that amount of money, and for less.
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Yes I heard his story a long time ago, a really painful story for this young man and a disappointing ending, but the good thing is that his story can become an icon like Bitcoin pizza, he became famous but lost his fortune forever. >:(
Of course he should have taken more security measures to keep the private key at that time but that doesn't work anymore, maybe the value of Bitcoin at that time was not that big because its price was very low so he didn't care much about taking precautions to keep the private key.
In the end he couldn't do anything anymore, I'm really sorry for him.
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It was his girlfriend who threw the hard drive away, but it is James' fault for leaving his hard drive carelessly, probably because BTC was not worth so much back then. I can understand how he feels, chasing this all these years, but it was obvious to many of us a long time ago that there was no hope of him recovering those funds, that is the reality.
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I think it's finally over for him, the city council has rejected his plea to go to the dumpster and search for his hard drive.
He even attempts to buy the landfill himself but to no avail.
So with that, it's really bad for him to not find his hard drive, but there's no one to blame but himself in this situation.
Maybe it was really fate that he lost it so that the price is going to skyrocket. Just imagine if he found it and sold everything, it will create a lot of chaos in the price.
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Oh, this was the dumpster guy. I feel bad and terrible knowing that he's been dedicated in finding his keys but in no success. This is what his fate and he didn't took care of his belongings on the early days and that's why he's sorry for himself. This is a fortune that can put him into retirement and don't have to work anymore until his deathbed. But, he has to start from somewhere and needs to move on because looking for it for several years is tiring. He's given up and it's just a history for his life that would surely give him nightmares.
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i think you are quite confused mate a hardware wallet is an offline storage of your coins and he did not take a screenshot of his private keys nor did he save it in his email he stored it in a hard drive which is smart if only he took care of it well
he accidentally gave it away and it landed on a landfill and this was 12 years ago when bitcoin is not what it is right now so i can just imagine his regret but anyway cold or hot wallet both needs to be taken care of well
No I think is the other way round.
Reread the post and you would realised I'm talking about two different things.
I was emphasising on the fact that individuals that chose to keep/protect their private key do such with the aforementioned methods which I'm stating isn't safe.
not really much distinction since you shared news of someone who held his private keys in a hardware wallet and still lost it i assumed that that is what we are talking about especially there was no mention of keeping his private keys in screenshots or anywhere that could be accessed through the internet
even if we store our private keys in a hardware wallet, there are still ways for it to be accessed or lost albeit a lot harder than its online counterparts
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[quote author=bitterguy28 link=topic=328026.msg1717870#msg1717870
even if we store our private keys in a hardware wallet, there are still ways for it to be accessed or lost albeit a lot harder than its online counterparts
[/quote] You said private key instead of coins.
I guess it was a mistake since private keys are not saved in hardware wallet.
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even if we store our private keys in a hardware wallet, there are still ways for it to be accessed or lost albeit a lot harder than its online counterparts
You said private key instead of coins.
I guess it was a mistake since private keys are not saved in hardware wallet.
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well he can consider it a donation and his name will be forever on the internet about the guy who lost his drive with a ton of BTC. such as waste but it is what it is.
That isn't even considered a donation at all because nobody benefitted from it. A donation is you giving it to somebody else for his/her betterment. In this case, nothing benefitted, and it just got lost completely.
This incident has a huge lesson for us in terms of securing our cryptocurrencies. Owning isn't enough, but we need to properly secure it as well.
This case is a prime example of what can happen if we will not secure our private keys. He can continue recovering that hard drive, but things aren't favoring on him knowing that they want to turn it into a solar farm based on that article which complicates his search.
At the end of the day, self-custody means self-responsibility—without proper measurements, even millions in Bitcoin can be lost forever.
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I think it's finally over for him, the city council has rejected his plea to go to the dumpster and search for his hard drive.
It has been over for him for a very long time, just that he vehemently refused to accept it, there was no way the authorities would have allowed him search the landfill for his hard drive, if they did they would be hit with numerous charges on the health dangers it pose to people living in the community nearby.
Even if James Howells found the hard drive, it must be damaged now and there is no way he would be able to read the data on it, he simply has to move on.
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Many people take protection of private keys for granted either by screenshotting Or even saving them in emails.
Worse are the ones that believe that as long as they are with their phones they are still in control of their funds.
Yes, I know such people who screenshot sensitive stuff on their phone, or save on chatting apps or on notepads in their laptops instead of securing somewhere safe. I ask them what if phone/lappy fails, they reply we'll have it repaired and get data back.
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Many people take protection of private keys for granted either by screenshotting Or even saving them in emails.
Worse are the ones that believe that as long as they are with their phones they are still in control of their funds.
Of course you have the right way by this line to our wallet information should be stored on a specific device because if the mobile device is lost, the data of the wallet may be stolen. Only the mobile device can be at risk of keeping this information and the control of your wallet may be lost in the future. Crypto wallet is not a credible broker because it is not controlled by a financial authority with strict criteria. We will not open an account with them for ourselves. If you want to be safe only sign up with those brokers who are supervised by a top level and strict regulator.
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Even while using a non custodial wallet, if your seedphrase isn't properly secured, your funds are not in your control.
It is too late for people to realize this.
I never thought I would be hacked before I have been hacked. Everyone thinks they are safe and no one is watching them. I read about the $5 wrench attack. People can be in trouble in many ways. Writing a seed phrase on a piece of paper does not take hours. Storing it securely is most important. I wish people learn from other peoples mistake. But I myself did not learned from other cases.
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After long 12 years, the popular saga of James Howells may have finally ended...and though I am feeling sorry for his failure to get back that hard drive with mined Bitcoin worth millions. I think the time has come for him to accept his fate as it would be so impossible to dig the thrash for it. At least, he made it to one of the many colorful personalities connected with Bitcoin. The biggest takeaway here is to never be lazy in securing everything you own most especially cryptocurrency as losing the key or seed phrases means losing access to something that is and will be so valuable. I am hoping that Quantum Computing will be the technology to get back the lost coins...though I am really also doubting it as it might create chaos in the market. Now, I am advising James Howells to instead capitalize on his story by licensing it to movies, books, documentaries and the likes as he can easily create a goldmine in there - and there is no more need to dig the heap of decades-old thrash.
Yeah, this is a good idea for James Howells to earn some income from his story. It's a sad story but it will also help many people understand what has happened in this market, the opportunity has come to all but most have missed it in one way or another.
I hope James Howells is still living well thanks to his own ability. He is a computer engineer and willing to access a new asset from 2013, he is not an ordinary person. In the future, he may have the right to search for his hard drive and we will have the opportunity to congratulate him!
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Storing it securely is most important. I wish people learn from other peoples mistake. But I myself did not learned from other cases.
Yeah this is true, though the case op brought to us does not have to do with someone losing their funds through hacking. However, you are right, it is good to pay close attention to security, BTC tx's are irreversible and immutable, so one you lose your funds, it is gone forever, so better not to lose it and put more effort into security.
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He will forever regret this, but he will have to move. its a battle that is not worth fighting because of the many restrictions and legality; his battle now is accepting his fate that he will not recover it anymore; no one will completely lose.
Many also have lost their Bitcoin but this is the most celebrated because of the number; he is forever etched in the history of community as the guy who lost his 8000 Bitcoin in a local landfill.
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well he can consider it a donation and his name will be forever on the internet about the guy who lost his drive with a ton of BTC. such as waste but it is what it is.
That isn't even considered a donation at all because nobody benefitted from it. A donation is you giving it to somebody else for his/her betterment. In this case, nothing benefitted, and it just got lost completely.
This incident has a huge lesson for us in terms of securing our cryptocurrencies. Owning isn't enough, but we need to properly secure it as well.
This case is a prime example of what can happen if we will not secure our private keys. He can continue recovering that hard drive, but things aren't favoring on him knowing that they want to turn it into a solar farm based on that article which complicates his search.
At the end of the day, self-custody means self-responsibility—without proper measurements, even millions in Bitcoin can be lost forever.
okay. the market benefits since he is like holding it for a decade already like satoshi. but then this will still not make him feel better.
He will forever regret this, but he will have to move. its a battle that is not worth fighting because of the many restrictions and legality; his battle now is accepting his fate that he will not recover it anymore; no one will completely lose.
Many also have lost their Bitcoin but this is the most celebrated because of the number; he is forever etched in the history of community as the guy who lost his 8000 Bitcoin in a local landfill.
it will forever be on the internet where some may call him the most unlucky guy who have no idea what he got until he lost the hard drive.
do you think someone out there found the drive? or maybe the mayor who first didn't allow him to dig the dirt tried to sabotage and find the hard drive for himself?
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Been there Before, mine was I lost my phone and was lucky that it was returned that's when I realised the irrelevant risk I have been taking.
What I do now is I usually delete my wallet app in case another gain access since I can tell roughly how much is in it through explorer.
Fortunately I did not lose my phone yet but one time not long ago, someone needed my phone to make call in office she was total stranger but I dialed and gave my phone to her the moment I gave her she vanished, I just looked away for 2 to 3 seconds and she was not there I panicked but I was relaxed a bit that her relative was sitting near me but I was still worried as she was not in my sight.
For 5 minutes she did not came back and I thought I am **ed but when she came back I asked actually not asked I had to show some of my anger haha as she did not had to go away without telling me just to talk in privacy haha.
The point is, we all have such moments when we thought we are going to face trouble now but fortunately we don't. Moments like these teaches me a lot and I become more aware of my surroundings for the next time. The fear of missing everything is like the big fear but I pray no one experience it. I also don't open my wallets outside my home even not talk to anyone not related about crypto life.
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Yes, I know such people who screenshot sensitive stuff on their phone, or save on chatting apps or on notepads in their laptops instead of securing somewhere safe. I ask them what if phone/lappy fails, they reply we'll have it repaired and get data back.
There is this one of my friend that started crypto recently, he got into airdrops and made some money but not claimed yet, he had his ssd change from small one to bigger one unfortunately he forgot he didn't back up his metamask seed phrase despite telling him to do so, he chatted me some days ago if there is a way he can have access to his wallet and I told him no.
This is the same person I thought everything, shown him everything and back up his first wallet he keep funds but he didn't do as I explained for him in airdrop. Now he has an airdrop he can't claim because he doesn't have access to his wallet. I guess the coin will be there forever.
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It is one of the nightmares of this man. He's never going to find his hardware wallet in the dumpster anymore. He has given up already and that's sad because even no matter what he offers to dumpsters management, he won't be given any chance for it because that's against their policies. And who knows after all of those years? That hardware wallet probably have been stomped and thrown somewhere else already.
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It is one of the nightmares of this man. He's never going to find his hardware wallet in the dumpster anymore. He has given up already and that's sad because even no matter what he offers to dumpsters management, he won't be given any chance for it because that's against their policies. And who knows after all of those years? That hardware wallet probably have been stomped and thrown somewhere else already.
Or it is also possible (I really like movies and conspiracy plots) that that hard drive was recovered years ago, by one of the landfill employees. Now someone might tell me, "if those Bitcoins were taken out of the wallet, everyone would have noticed", maybe yes, and maybe not. Assuming that the owner of that hard drive does not keep the private keys, it is also likely that he does not know or remember the addresses where he received those Bitcoins, therefore, from minute 1 of the denial of access permission to the landfill, and knowing the reason, any employee could have found the hard drive. It's unlikely that what I'm talking about happened, but it's a possibility.
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well he can consider it a donation and his name will be forever on the internet about the guy who lost his drive with a ton of BTC. such as waste but it is what it is.
there was an article about quantum computer able to recover its coins in the wallet and just put it in circulation so that no BTC will be unused. i know its kind of a news that makes BTC insecure asset but that was just a story. if its true though, its going to be quite a bummer.
As regards the quantum computer ability to recover lost Bitcoin, it is yet a theory, the quantum computer has not arrived, though on the news few months ago, but some of the features, like it's ability recover lost Bitcoin might have been speculated.
As for the lost Bitcoin, I think it is gone, until the quantum solution for any lost Bitcoin has surfaced on the crypto economy. My advice to anyone who has large quantities of Bitcoin is to be careful and properly secure your Bitcoin wallet key, or seed phrase in safe place.
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well he can consider it a donation and his name will be forever on the internet about the guy who lost his drive with a ton of BTC. such as waste but it is what it is.
It's unfortunate, yes at least he tried even though the results were not there ... everyone who seems to have lost their wallet when they have Bitcoin at a price of tens of dollars also seems to be a lot, but they may not publish their loss because of their own considerations ... seeing the experience of that person, surely many are thinking of starting to adopt a centralized wallet, where when the loss occurs, they can claim by verifying ownership with KYC on the related wallet service provider ... yes it has a chance of success, but the procedure will certainly not be easy ...
Some people may start to hesitate to anticipate the incident ... and maybe some are also thinking of using an exchange wallet, because as long as they have valid proof of identity, their funds are still safe ... but unfortunately the exchange is also not 100% safe ... indeed nothing is 100% safe in this world .. even the Bitcoin in our wallet is only considered safe until the balance in it is hacked ..
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Or it is also possible (I really like movies and conspiracy plots) that that hard drive was recovered years ago, by one of the landfill employees. Now someone might tell me, "if those Bitcoins were taken out of the wallet, everyone would have noticed", maybe yes, and maybe not.
There are reasons to believe both cases but I think there is a high chance he had those coins and just like the story goes he couldn't actually recover them. Although the bitcoin network is decentralized, it is also transparent meaning everyone can see what is actually going on in the network.
Basically there are thousands of addresses being watched till date. Infact it's more like any address with a very huge sum of coins is being monitored behind bars so if coins are moved they would notice it.
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The news can be accessed above about a Man that lost its Hard drive during cleanup.
It's persistence shows he never kept his private key well.
You are confusing hardware wallets with hard drives here.
This guy lost his computer drive that contains keys for his wallet, but that is not the same thing as hardware wallets like Trezor.
I doubt he is veer going to recover his hard disc, and it's questionable if it's even going to work because of weather and water damage.
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There are reasons to believe both cases but I think there is a high chance he had those coins and just like the story goes he couldn't actually recover them. Although the bitcoin network is decentralized, it is also transparent meaning everyone can see what is actually going on in the network.
Basically there are thousands of addresses being watched till date. Infact it's more like any address with a very huge sum of coins is being monitored behind bars so if coins are moved they would notice it.
I agree with you, my post was just an “idea”, which probably didn't happen, but who knows, you can expect almost anything when we talk about those amounts of money. And although at that time Bitcoin had a significantly lower economic value than today, it does not mean that so many application denials hid any similar fact. But those Bitcoins will most likely be lost forever. We'll see if the quantum computing of the future (it will be a long time before we see it) can do something about it.
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I think these people can afford to lose these amounts. I would consider this as a donation to the Bitcoin community. If someone is lazy enough not to keep a backup of their wallet, which has 700 million dollars worth of Bitcoin, then let them lose more. I have nothing to say about these people. Or there is a possibility that they didn't know how to keep it secure. Then again, why someone would invest such big amount without knowing how it works.
These should be lesson for all of us. We still use wallets where do not have controls. We should check the backup from time to time so we know that we aren't using a unsecured wallet which can be lost incase of device failure or a hardware failure.
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If someone is lazy enough not to keep a backup of their wallet, which has 700 million dollars worth of Bitcoin, then let them lose more.
This is not a recent story, this is about James Howells who lost his coins a very long time ago, BTC was not worth so much back then, but he had a lot in his stash, and he lost it when his girlfriend took out the trash with his hard drive in it. What you see now is the worth of his coins if he had held it since then, but he lost his hard drive and he has been looking for it ever since.
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This is not a recent story, this is about James Howells who lost his coins a very long time ago, BTC was not worth so much back then, but he had a lot in his stash, and he lost it when his girlfriend took out the trash with his hard drive in it. What you see now is the worth of his coins if he had held it since then, but he lost his hard drive and he has been looking for it ever since.
I think I have heard this before.
Or the story was pretty similar, I guess. I heard a guy throw his hard drive in the trash, which he tried to find later, but if I am not wrong, he probably didn't find it because it ended up in a massive trash mountain. In such a case, who is to blame? My wife once sold my graphics card boxes with the invoice inside, and when I was about to sell my GPU, I was looking for the box and the invoice, and she suddenly said that she sold it to a waste buyer for just 0.2 USD per KG/rate. What should I say? Who should be blamed?
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I think I have heard this before.
Or the story was pretty similar, I guess. I heard a guy throw his hard drive in the trash, which he tried to find later, but if I am not wrong, he probably didn't find it because it ended up in a massive trash mountain. In such a case, who is to blame?
Yeah, that is the story, the James Howells story, it has to be one of the most popular stories in the industry and i think everyone must have read about it. Howells has been searching for this hard drive ever since, he even proposed to buy the landfill, but all his efforts have just been a waste of his time. It is his fault that his hard drive got lost, because he put it in the trash bag and his gf took the bag out.
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Yeah, that is the story, the James Howells story, it has to be one of the most popular stories in the industry and i think everyone must have read about it. Howells has been searching for this hard drive ever since, he even proposed to buy the landfill, but all his efforts have just been a waste of his time. It is his fault that his hard drive got lost, because he put it in the trash bag and his gf took the bag out.
We don't know when the search began, do you think he started the search immediately? I don't know because I read that a long time ago. I don't remember if he mentioned when he started the search. If it was a day after or a couple of hours later, he should have found it at that time. But I assume he figured out a little late, which is why he was not able to find it.
There is a possibility someone else found it and never told him that they found it. Especially if someone knows what is inside the harddrive, I don't think they would return it even if they cannot access his Bitcoins.
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No, that is not a hardware wallet, that is just a hard drive with a wallet on it.
It may sound similar but there's a very important distinction between the two.
One is very secure, the other is not so secure anymore. And to make matters worse, back then there were no password locks on Bitcoin Core wallets. Or many other kinds of wallets as well besides maybe Armory.
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The use of hardware wallet has been found interesting and secured for conveniences, but we should not forget that it also have to be well managed as well as handled properly, we should also device a means to store our keys in a more secured source, so we can have an alternative to fall back on, if you're not the type that is good in managing things well, then this may not be good for you because you can't afford to damage it at any cost or lost it private information.
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The use of hardware wallet has been found interesting and secured for conveniences, but we should not forget that it also have to be well managed as well as handled properly,
James Howells didn't have a hardware wallet, this story is from way back, what Howells had was a hard drive, why are some of you getting this story wrong, this has to be one of the most popular stories in the network. Just check the internet for James Howells and you will find everything you need to know.
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One is very secure, the other is not so secure anymore. And to make matters worse, back then there were no password locks on Bitcoin Core wallets. Or many other kinds of wallets as well besides maybe Armory.
I think people used more disc encryption when they wanted to make their files more secure.
Question is if owner of this drive used any encryption or not, but I have to give him credit for being persistent in trying to get his old property back.
I wonder if there are already a bunch of poor people who are allready diging in junk and looking for this drive after reading all the news about him ;)
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I wonder if there are already a bunch of poor people who are allready diging in junk and looking for this drive after reading all the news about him ;)
I believe the owner at least knows his wallet address and he can see if those Bitcoins are still on those addresses. If so, I guess he won't lose the hope and keep searching for that. But if he does not even knows his wallet address, then I don't know what he can expect and why he would continue to search. If he didn't tell anyone about what is inside the hard drive, probably no one would dig through the trash. But since it is well known story, yeah, I also think some people dig those trash from time to time.
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I believe the owner at least knows his wallet address and he can see if those Bitcoins are still on those addresses. If so, I guess he won't lose the hope and keep searching for that.
He won't lose hope and he will continue searching for his old drive, but treasure hunters will do the same thing and they know location of this junk site.
I think people should learn some lessons from this example, it's better to have multiple backups of private keys or seed phrases, and to distribute them in several different locations if possible.
Problem is that in early bitcoin days nobody was thinking about this :P
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Private keys are like keys to our safe, when we lost the key then we can't open the safe this is the simplified version of why keys or seeds are important. The worst part is the seeds will be atleasat 128 bits encrypted means we can't brute-force it unless only a few missing from the list of words.
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Problem is that in early bitcoin days nobody was thinking about this :P
Probably because Bitcoin was not valuable at that time, people did not care because they never thought Bitcoin would reach a hundred thousand dollars one day. If someone knew that Bitcoin would reach a hundred thousand dollars, they would create multiple backups and probably acquire more Bitcoin in the old days. But that is the main part, we do not know anything about the future. So, a lot of us still careless about our Bitcoin holding. Some of thinking this is the highest point bitcoin may reach, but I believe 100K is just a check point.
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Probably because Bitcoin was not valuable at that time, people did not care because they never thought Bitcoin would reach a hundred thousand dollars one day. If someone knew that Bitcoin would reach a hundred thousand dollars, they would create multiple backups and probably acquire more Bitcoin in the old days.
~snip~
This is just another one of the facts that are incorrect and have been repeated for years - because this is about 7500 BTC which in 2013 was worth about $10 million - and now the question arises why someone would put an HDD with that much value in a drawer with other junk that his wife/partner would then simply clean out as most other women would probably do.
He claims that there were 2 HDDs in the drawer, the wrong one ended up in the trash - but I ask again, who keeps $10 million worth of stuff in a regular drawer that anyone can open and do whatever they want with the contents?
My conclusion is that he simply forgot that he had that BTC and that at that moment in his life he completely forgot that BTC even existed.
It is interesting that JH claims that this HDD contains the real IP address of Satoshi because he claims that he was one of the first people to mine with Satoshi.
James mined more than 7,500 coins in a short space of time. The code required to spend those coins was accidentally thrown into a landfill in 2013. The valuation at the time was roughly $10 million and by December 2017, this valuation had increased to $175 million, he claims...Asked how it ended up in landfill, he explained that it was “thrown out into a bin bag during a clear-out in a case of ‘mistaken (hdd) identity’ in summer 2013. There were two hdds in the same drawer, the wrong one got binned? s*** happens.”
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Probably because Bitcoin was not valuable at that time, people did not care because they never thought Bitcoin would reach a hundred thousand dollars one day. If someone knew that Bitcoin would reach a hundred thousand dollars, they would create multiple backups and probably acquire more Bitcoin in the old days. But that is the main part, we do not know anything about the future. So, a lot of us still careless about our Bitcoin holding. Some of thinking this is the highest point bitcoin may reach, but I believe 100K is just a check point.
There was some value for bitcoin even back than in the first days, but it was much lower in the beginning compared to price we have today.
People would not continue mining for nothing, but they probably started as a fun experiment and they had lower expectations.
I think people today are going in opposite direction with unrealistic price expectations.
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People would not continue mining for nothing, but they probably started as a fun experiment and they had lower expectations.
I think people today are going in opposite direction with unrealistic price expectations.
I read what Hal posted on the forum about how he has been mining Bitcoin with his CPU and why he stopped mining. He was mining just for fun, and he stopped mining because the fan noise was bothering him. When he checked his Bitcoin a couple of years later, he figured out that it was already worth some real money. So he moved his Bitcoin to another wallet and expected his kids to find it someday because he believed his kids were tech-savvy. As we all know, they did not find the wallet. Or even if they found it, we don't know about it.
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People would not continue mining for nothing, but they probably started as a fun experiment and they had lower expectations.
I think people today are going in opposite direction with unrealistic price expectations.
I read what Hal posted on the forum about how he has been mining Bitcoin with his CPU and why he stopped mining. He was mining just for fun, and he stopped mining because the fan noise was bothering him. When he checked his Bitcoin a couple of years later, he figured out that it was already worth some real money. So he moved his Bitcoin to another wallet and expected his kids to find it someday because he believed his kids were tech-savvy. As we all know, they did not find the wallet. Or even if they found it, we don't know about it.
The only one I remember back then is this,
according to iChainfo, the wallet associated with Finney has seen increased activity this month, with 46 BTC sent to Kraken, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges. The most recent transfer of 10 BTC took place on September 30, 2024, raising eyebrows in the crypto space. Prior to this, the wallet had remained largely inactive, leading many to wonder about the motives behind these recent transactions.
While the wallet’s history and association with Hal Finney are well-documented, it’s worth noting that his family now has control over the wallet. As such, any decisions to move funds from the wallet are likely made by his heirs.
At the current market price, the 10 BTC transferred to Kraken is valued at approximately $260,000, making the total value of the 46 BTC sent this month around $1.2 million.
https://bitcoinworld.co.in/hal-finneys-wallet-transfers-10-btc-to-kraken/
So maybe his kids found or his wife might have a idea. Nevertheless, we really can't verify this news as well.
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https://bitcoinworld.co.in/hal-finneys-wallet-transfers-10-btc-to-kraken/
So maybe his kids found or his wife might have a idea. Nevertheless, we really can't verify this news as well.
I was not aware of this event. I thought his kids had not found his wallet yet. But as Hal Finney posted, he expects his child to find the wallet someday which he safely stored somewhere. He believed that his child was tech savvy and they would figure it out.
It is good to know at least they found the wallet. But I guess I have heard that his family was struggling financially, so that made me think they did not find the wallet. Now I feel better knowing that they got the wallet.