🔥 BREAKING: The loss of 7,500 BTC is the most expensive regret in crypto history 📉

MidsommarWallet · 2026-01-12T20:32:12+00:00

James Howells discarded a hard drive in 2013 that contained 7,500 BTC, now worth $742 million. Despite years of efforts to recover it, access to the cryptocurrency remains lost, emphasizing the need for proper asset protection and backups in the crypto space.

MidsommarWallet

2026-01-12 20:32:12

Abstract generation in progress

When a Hard Drive Becomes a Tomb for Millions

In 2013, a man made a mistake that haunted him for 12 years. James Howells threw away a regular hard drive at a British landfill. At the time, no one suspected that this drive contained 7,500 BTC — today valued at $742 million at the current Bitcoin price of $91.79K.

Today, after over a decade of battles and refusals, this saga has officially come to an end. The search has been discontinued. The Bitcoins probably will never see the light of day.

Twelve Years of Fighting the System

It’s not just about throwing it away. For years, Howells proposed various solutions to local authorities:

Robotic scanning systems
Artificial intelligence for recovery
Investment funding for the project
All rejected

Costs kept rising. Rejections piled up. The legal battle has become extremely expensive and hopeless.

The Math of the Disaster

Let’s understand the scale of the loss:

One hard drive = 7,500 BTC
7,500 BTC × $91.79K = $688.425 million worth
Time is waiting — cryptocurrency grows, so does the loss with it

This is not just a big number. It’s half a billion dollars that still physically exists but is inaccessible. Discarded among trash as ordinary electronic waste.

What We Learned from This Horror?

History speaks clearly. Owning cryptocurrency is not enough — you must protect it wisely:

Make backups — one hard drive is extremely insufficient. Store copies in multiple locations, distributed.

Keep your seed phrases safe — they are the absolute ownership of your funds. Losing them means losing everything.

Old devices have value — before discarding any hard drive or device, think twice. Technology evolves, recovery does too.

Conclusion

At the current BTC price of $91.79K, losing 7,500 bitcoins is a financial tragedy of the highest order. But more importantly — it’s a reminder of the responsibility of everyone working with crypto assets. A moment of carelessness can mean thousands of years of regret.

Protect your assets. Now. Not tomorrow.

BTC-0,34%

View Original

This page may contain third-party content, which is provided for information purposes only (not representations/warranties) and should not be considered as an endorsement of its views by Gate, nor as financial or professional advice. See Disclaimer for details.