A WELSH MAN who accidentally binned €4.8 million in Bitcoins currency has been told there’s no chance of finding the money at the landfill where it was dumped.
James Howells threw away an old hard drive a few months ago, which he believed had been cleared of any useful material… but how wrong he was.
He soon realised that the drive contained the key to 7,500 Bitcoins; the value of the virtual currency hit $1,000 this week, meaning he had thrown away $7.5 million (€4.8m) worth.
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Howells told BBC Radio Wales that the drive was “in a drawer on its own after an incident with a previous laptop and I thought that I had taken off everything I needed”.
He said he hesitated momentarily when he first put it in the bin, but that he went ahead and brought the bags of rubbish to the landfill near his home in Newport in south Wales.
It wasn’t until he started hearing media reports about the value of Bitcoins that he realised his mistake.
Workers at the landfill site have said that it’s almost certain that the hard drive has been compressed and buried.
According to Wales Online Newport council has said that would-be treasure hunters will not be permitted to enter the landfill site.
