Lose your keys, lose your crypto

Neat read. No clue how true it is. It's on DM, lots of pics, etc. May not want to open on phone.

Inside the landfill hiding £1.5bn in Bitcoin: Security teams and cameras guard dump around the clock over fears treasure hunters could try to DIG it up after computer expert accidentally threw crypto fortune in bin​

A landfill hiding £1.5billion in Bitcoin is being guarded round the clock with a network of video cameras to keep out metal detectors hoping to strike lucky.

Early crypto investor James Howells, 38, made the calamitous mistake of accidentally throwing away 8,000 Bitcoins ten years ago and is now launching a legal fight to get them back.

A misunderstanding saw his partner throw away the only hard drive containing the access to his crypto assets - which has now rocketed in value to more than £450m - as he had been temporarily storing it in a black bin bag.

Distraught James has been trying to recover the disc from the council run dump ever since and has narrowed the potential search down to an area which would mean excavating 100,000 tonnes of rubbish buried under the grassy hills.

However, a strict security cordon is in place at the the Newport Household Waste Recycling Centre in South Wales after the council refused him permission.

Read the rest:

I split the post out for a dedicated thread. It's a cautionary tale for anyone dabbling in crypto. You need to take care with securing your keys/passwords for the long haul.

Sounds similar to a boating accident.

One might need an Elon Musk Neuralink to have 'Commander Data's' memory ability when dabbling in crypto...

CopperSilverGold said:

Sounds similar to a boating accident.

Click to expand...

No because usually you can rent a submarine and go down there, in a recovery expedition.
But once you lose the keys, the coins are gone for good.
This thought kept me away from btc back then

Goldhedge said:

One might need an Elon Musk Neuralink to have 'Commander Data's' memory ability when dabbling in crypto...

Click to expand...

Precisely because very few people have Eidetic memory, most people store key/password info on hard drives, USBs, etc. The guy in the OP had the info stored on a hard drive which apparenty got tossed into the trash. Secure storage for a hard drive needs to be considered if you have a decent investment to protect.

This issue is why I recommend anyone using the Ledger Nano to also get the Cryptotag Zeus. The Cryptotag Zeus let's you store your seed phrase (master password) encoded on titanium plates that should survive the test of a lifetime easily.

British Man Who Lost 7,500 BTC Sues for Right to Search Council Landfill​

James Howells, a British computer expert whose ex-partner accidentally discarded a drive containing 7,500 bitcoins (BTC), has initiated a legal action to compel Newport City Council to permit him to search a landfill where he believes the cryptocurrency is located. A group of hedge fund investors is reportedly financing Howells’ potentially expensive lawsuit.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the investors stand to receive a portion of the lost BTC if and when Howells successfully recovers them. In addition to financing the lawsuit, which is slated to be filed in the High Court, the hedge fund investors have assembled a team of search specialists and data recovery engineers.

More:

Update:

Man Who Accidentally Sent $527M in Bitcoins to Dump Sues Local Council to Retrieve Them: Report​

In 2013, Howells accidentally threw out the hard drive his bitcoin stash that he had mined in 2009, worth around $1 million at the time but which now would be worth over $520 million.

• A British man has filed a legal claim against a local council in an attempt to retrieve a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC he accidentally threw out in 2013.
• Howells assembled a team to carry out a $13 million excavation of the landfill, which would take between 18 and 36 months to carry out with a further year of remediation work.
• The council has rejected the request out of environmental concerns.

A British man has filed a legal claim against a local council in Wales in an attempt to retrieve a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC that he accidentally threw out in 2013, according to news website WalesOnline.

More:

The saga continues.................

$749 million ‘treasure hunt’: Crypto miner fights to retrieve Bitcoin fortune he claims was accidentally thrown in landfill​

An early Bitcoin miner says he lost a fortune worth more than $700 million after his partner accidentally threw a hard drive containing 8,000 coins in a landfill dumpster more than a decade ago.

James Howells of Newport, Wales, has asked his local council if he can dig through its rubbish site to find the discarded hard drive—but he has been denied so far.

More:

pmbug said:

Precisely because very few people have Eidetic memory, most people store key/password info on hard drives, USBs, etc. The guy in the OP had the info stored on a hard drive which apparenty got tossed into the trash. Secure storage for a hard drive needs to be considered if you have a decent investment to protect.

This issue is why I recommend anyone using the Ledger Nano to also get the Cryptotag Zeus. The Cryptotag Zeus let's you store your seed phrase (master password) encoded on titanium plates that should survive the test of a lifetime easily.

Click to expand...

There's no total protection against disaster. Here and at the other site, there's a member whose home burned down, and while his safe withstood the fire, it got hot enough to melt his stacks. He got some money back, but only a percentage of it, and only after a long hassle, and denial by insurance.

I had a mini-crisis happen just a month ago. I had bought some fractional gold, and was putting it into my tubes...in preparation for a boat ride...and one skittered out of my hand (I may be with early Parkinson's) and landed on the floor. I heard it bounce on the carpet-protector my desk chair is on...but I've searched EVERYWHERE and cannot find it.

$300 lost. I don't need it right now; I have an offal lot to burn through before I'm digging behind the desk and pulling back the baseboards. But...excrement occurs, as we might say in mixed company.

True enough, but some risks are easy to anticipate and cheap to mitigate.

UK Judge dismisses $770M Bitcoin landfill hard drive case​

James Howells, an IT engineer from Newport, Wales, has lost his legal battle to recover a hard drive with over $770 million worth of Bitcoin.

The hard drive holding over $770 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) mined in 2009, was mistakenly disposed of in a landfill, to which Howells is currently barred access by the Newport City Council due to its environmental permit.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/oth...S&cvid=a70302633ace4f01ba6504595b70a63f&ei=14

Hope that dude has a good support network of family or friends. He probably should be on suicide watch...

I've mentioned before that I use the CryptoTag Zeus (sold by Ledger):


They are titanium plates with a melting point above 1660 C. The washers in the tweet are 316 SS with a melting point of 1400 C per the author.

Somewhat related (fire safes work apparently):

Man Wants to Buy the Dump Where His Bitcoin Hard Drive Got Tossed​

Feb 11, 2025
I'll admit it's an interesting twist.

12:26