Backup, Backup, Backup

IT pro says he threw out 7,500 bitcoins, now worth $7.5 million Ars Technica by Jon Brodkin   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." Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments