The Week-end Stock Pot Watch, Thursday, November 28th-December 1st. Holiday Edition!

[Demeter]

69. IT pro says he threw out 7,500 bitcoins, now worth $7.5 million

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/it-pro-says-he-threw-out-7500-bitcoins-now-worth-7-5-million/

Many people have a tale of a lost or broken hard drive containing some bit of precious data they wish they could recover. But perhaps no one on the planet has thrown out a hard drive as valuable as the one James Howells says is now buried in a landfill.

According to an article in The Guardian today, Howells threw out the hard drive, "rescued from a defunct Dell laptop," this past summer. "And then last Friday he realised that it held a digital wallet with 7,500 Bitcoins created for almost nothing in 2009," the story notes.

Howells, an IT pro, says his mistake likely occurred in mid-July, at which time a single bitcoin was worth about $90. Today, the value of a single bitcoin passed $1,000 for the first time, making 7,500 bitcoins worth $7.5 million.

According to The Guardian story, Howells did not have a backup. The drive he allegedly threw out "contains the cryptographic 'private key' that is needed to be able to access and spend the bitcoins; without it, the 'money' is lost forever."

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