Accidentally threw away a hard drive worth SEK 52 million

The digital currency bitcoin has recently been valued at very high sums, from previously costing almost nothing. Instead of bills and coins, bitcoins consist of a data file, so if you have them, you’d do well to back them up. Because if you lose the file, you lose your bitcoins.

Welshman James Howells had bought bitcoins cheap quite a while ago and forgotten about them. However, Howells had not saved the file properly. It was actually on a hard drive he threw away, writes Metro.

You can’t save on all the electronics you’ve accumulated over the years, and so did James Howell reason when he threw away the hard drive he hadn’t used in years. Then he thought nothing more of it until he read about a Norwegian who forgot his bitcoins and realized he was a millionaire.

Then Howell remembered that he had also bought bitcoins quite a while ago. More specifically, 7,500 pieces. With today’s valuation, it is approximately SEK 52 million. And that file was on the hard drive he threw away.

After realizing that he didn’t take a backup, he headed to the dump where he soon realized that looking for the hard drive was futile.