In 2013, a British IT engineer named James Howells mined 7,500 Bitcoins on his personal computer. At the time, Bitcoin was worth almost nothing—just a hobby for tech geeks.
Later that year, while cleaning his house, he accidentally threw away an old hard drive that contained the private keys to his Bitcoin wallet.
He didn’t realize the mistake until years later.
Fast forward:
Bitcoin crossed $1,000 → too late
Bitcoin crossed $20,000 → panic
Bitcoin crossed $60,000 → the wallet was worth over $500 million
The hard drive was sitting in a city landfill, buried under thousands of tons of garbage.
James tried everything:
Offered the city millions of dollars to dig it up
Proposed using AI robots to search safely
Took legal action
🚫 The city refused—environmental risks, costs, and no guarantees.
To this day, those Bitcoins remain lost forever.
Why this story matters
🔐 Self-custody is powerful—but risky
❌ No bank, no “forgot password”
💰 Lost coins make Bitcoin scarcer (good for price, bad for owners)
Over 3–4 million BTC are estimated to be permanently lost due to stories like this.