This guy must be going mad, he lost 4 Million Pounds worth of Bitcoins

[superresistant]

This story   E V E R Y   D A Y

Please stop

[crazy_rabbit]

Youd think the landfill site company would have their diggers working day and night to find it, if he offers them 25%, theyve cleared £1mill for a few weeks work.


 

I think the question is- is the story genuine? If it is, then it would be worth it to go through the landfill- but it's would be a very big logistical endevour that is by no means guaranteed. Even if the story is true- the drive could be in such bad shape as to be unrecoverable. Or by chance it might never have made it to the landfill in the first place. The company or city that runs the landfill isn't going to take that chance. Buried treasure will remain buried.

Higher value bitcoins for the rest of us!

[strmir]

It's unbelievable that this story appeared even in Czech media yesterday

http://www.novinky.cz/internet-a-pc/320623-brit-vyhodil-disk-s-bitcoiny-v-hodnote-150-milionu-ted-prohledava-skladku.html

They even provided details (I wonder if they made everything up):

- he somehow acquired 7,500 coins in 2009
- later he spilled a drink in the computer!
- he sold all the components worth it and put the harddrive into drawer
- he found the drive this year while doing some housekeeping and tossed it into garbage
- he started to search the landfill site 4 months later
- according to the landfill operator the layer of waste with the drive is buried 1.5m (~5ft) under the surface

LOLZ!

[Mitchell]

The guy supposedly works in IT and he:

1. Failed to keep any HDD backup;
2. Threw out the old HDD without checking it first;
3. Failed to destroy the HDD before throwing it out.

So if the story is to be believed he is some IT guy.

Because of these reasons I think it's a fake story and he just tries to get some Bitcoins from others.

Actually this story can be found in a UK daily newspaper. He has no involvement with any Bitcoin forum and has not asked for any donations. There must be a thousand and one hard luck stories with having lost Bitcoins or sold cheaply. He is not unique.

The article I read had an donation address. And being in a newspaper doesn't say anything, you know that right?

[superresistant]

Oh yeah me too I lost 300K BTC, I can't remember my password, it start with 123 and I can't remember the last number.

[davida]

lol, he would probably be better off trying to randomly generating his private key than crawling through landfill looking for this hard drive. joking of course.

although, for 4 million couldn't he turn up at the landfill with like over 100 people and search through the most recently dumped stuff.

it would still be £40,000 each if they found it.

[techstorm2]

The guy supposedly works in IT and he:

1. Failed to keep any HDD backup;
2. Threw out the old HDD without checking it first;
3. Failed to destroy the HDD before throwing it out.

So if the story is to be believed he is some IT guy.

Because of these reasons I think it's a fake story and he just tries to get some Bitcoins from others.

It must be true, i saw him on the BBC news, youre not suggesting the BBC make up stories are you! 

[Mitchell]

The guy supposedly works in IT and he:

1. Failed to keep any HDD backup;
2. Threw out the old HDD without checking it first;
3. Failed to destroy the HDD before throwing it out.

So if the story is to be believed he is some IT guy.

Because of these reasons I think it's a fake story and he just tries to get some Bitcoins from others.

It must be true, i saw him on the BBC news, youre not suggesting the BBC make up stories are you! 

Not sure if that is sarcasm. Did you know that most papers just copy stuff from others and publish it as there own? It has been tested and proved in The Netherlands with fake articles.

[davida]

http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/bitcoins-drama-4m-hard-drive-trashed/2ggdhzu3?cpkey=cf7ed826-70c6-4510-846d-7f4ec4f0182b


it seems pretty believable to be honest....

really what has he got to gain from lying about it.  (apart from thousands of people thinking... what an absolute fool)

[Phinnaeus Gage]

if you have more than 1000 dollars worth of bitcoins it worth putting it all on a cold wallet and make a copy of that wallet to put in a safety deposit box.

So, what you're sayin' is that I'm an idiot for storing 1,132+ BTC in three separate wallets on InstaWallet prior to their hack, correct? At least I won't have to dig through a landfill to recover my coins, albeit landmines come to mine.

Bruno Kucinskas

[Relian]

Lol, stop belief this.. An IT which not makes a backup of his HDD? And loses all his bitcoins? haha

Well, IF its true.. I love to find them.

[crazy_rabbit]

if you have more than 1000 dollars worth of bitcoins it worth putting it all on a cold wallet and make a copy of that wallet to put in a safety deposit box.

So, what you're sayin' is that I'm an idiot for storing 1,132+ BTC in three separate wallets on InstaWallet prior to their hack, correct? At least I won't have to dig through a landfill to recover my coins, albeit landmines come to mine.

Bruno Kucinskas

I almost forgot about that- what happened with that? Any update?

[Digicoiner]

From what I read he didn't purchase them but mined them on an old Dell laptop for one week until his girlfriend complained it generated too much noise and heat.   Now she's left him because he lost them? In those days Bitcoin was so cheap and little used probably few miners thought to make backups.

[rmines]

Thread regarding the same subject: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=349082.0

[Biomech]

Was listening to BBC radio 4 on the way home from work and they had a story about a guy looking for his hardrive in a landfill site.

He purchased Bitcoins around 3 years ago and then just forgot about them, Three months ago he threw his old computer bits out including the hardrive with his Bitcoin address. He then realised how much Bitcoins had risen from 3 years ago. If he still had that hardrive he would have had 4 million pound worth of Bitcoins. He has been up on the landfill site looking for it and talking to the people who work at the landfill site his hardrive is buried and he has 0 chance of finding it.

Wow I would be so gutted if that ever happened to me

 .. never throw away your old computer bits

Small correction: he MINED them, not bought. Then his girlfriend complained his pc was too noisy and he quitted.

Ok ok, lesson one, when it comes to Bitcoin never listen to your girlfriend !!

FTFY

[Wendigo]

The guy is working in IT as well and he didn't back up properly the hard drive before throwing it out and missed the wallet file apparently, I would be mad too

[johnyj]

If this trend continues, soon we will have another guy collecting donations for finding his 1 million coins usb drive he accidentally lost during a sailing on Atlantic

[Mondy]

So fake my eyes are bleeding

Please stop trusting and spreading bullshit

It could be real?

[jackjack]

So fake my eyes are bleeding

Please stop trusting and spreading bullshit

It could be real?

Indeed, just like my God (see my avatar)

Ramen

[coins101]

lol, he would probably be better off trying to randomly generating his private key than crawling through landfill looking for this hard drive. joking of course.

although, for 4 million couldn't he turn up at the landfill with like over 100 people and search through the most recently dumped stuff.

it would still be £40,000 each if they found it.

Thanks. I thought I was the only one trying to work through how many people it would take to search the dump over a weekend.