Man Offers $68 Million Reward To Help Him Recover Lost Bitcoin Hard Drive

Turn the clock back years ago when bitcoin was still relatively new, people probably didn’t give it much thought or treated it particularly seriously. This is because bitcoin back then wasn’t worth that much, so people were giving it out in large quantities. These days, the value of bitcoin has shot through the roof, so those who held onto their bitcoin back then are sitting on a lot of money.

A man from the UK by the name of James Howells is one of those people, or at least he was because Howells had a hard drive containing 7,500 bitcoin. Based on the value today, it’s worth roughly $268 million. Unfortunately for Howell, he had mistakenly thrown out the drive back in 2013 and is now offering a $68 million reward if he can get it back.

That’s a lot of money, but considering that the entire drive is worth more, we suppose it’s a fair price to pay. In fact, Howell doesn’t want people to go look for the drive for him, he is actually willing to let him search a landfill for the laptop that contains the drive. The reward money, if he is successful in locating it, will be donated to his home city of Newport and be used towards a COVID relief fund.

However, it seems that the Newport Council has repeatedly rejected Howell’s request. The reason is because an excavation is not possible due current licensing permits, and also because it would have a huge environmental impact on the surroundings. This is not the first time we’re hearing about someone losing their stash of bitcoin, and we doubt it would be the last.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: bitcoin, cryptocurrency