Missing Bitcoin and lost execs: Halloween’s creepiest crypto mysteries

2024-11-01 13:46:43 Primitive Reading

From cointelegraph by Yohan Yun

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From lost millions in landfill hard drives to missing founders, the crypto world teems with legends of loss and deception.

These haunting stories offer a glimpse into the unexpected pitfalls of Bitcoin BTC$69,345 and cryptocurrencies — and the lengths people will go to recover their elusive fortunes.

This Halloween, Cointelegraph dives into six of the most spine-chilling mysteries in crypto.

The haunted hard drive and lost Bitcoin in a trash tomb

In the depths of Newport’s landfill in the United Kingdom, a Bitcoin ghost grows in value, haunting the mounds of discarded debris for more than a decade.

In 2013, IT engineer James Howells accidentally tossed a hard drive into this wasteland. The device, holding a fortune of 8,000 BTC, was then valued at $1 million — but now exceeds half a billion dollars.

Digging for a hard drive in a landfill containing 110,000 tonnes of rubbish is like finding a needle in a haystack. Source: Bakhrom Tursunov

Howells envisioned numerous expeditions to unearth his buried digital fortune. But each mission met the unyielding resistance of the guardians of this techno-crypt, the local council.

The landfill, bombarded with roughly 110,000 tonnes of garbage, has become a grave for Howell’s Bitcoin — currency that is lost yet immeasurably valuable.

Related: From landfill to lawsuit: James Howells’ quest to reclaim lost Bitcoin

Howells has sued the Newport City Council for 495 million British pounds ($643 million).

His case, set to be heard on Dec. 3, will determine whether the Bitcoin ghost hunt at the Newport garbage site should commence or be left to wander the forsaken land for eternity.

The undeletable zombie Bitcoin of the immutable ledger

Like Howell’s forsaken fortune, every instance of lost Bitcoin tells a story — of forgotten passwords scribbled on scraps of paper, wallets damaged by the elements, and investors who took their cryptographic secrets to the grave.

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