You might think “oh why do I care about a guy who lost a hard drive in a landfill and has been fruitlessly trying to find it?” Well what if I told you that hard drive is worth almost 750 million dollars - ThreadSky

brendelbored.bsky.social • 13 days ago

You might think “oh why do I care about a guy who lost a hard drive in a landfill and has been fruitlessly trying to find it?”

Well what if I told you that hard drive is worth almost 750 million dollars

Reposted from Erin Fogg

We Bought a Dump

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Comments

hypereutectoid.bsky.social•13 days ago

I feel like there's some kind of comedy where dodgy people back the attempt to buy the landfill, the guy then finds it (irreparably damaged by an angry seagull), and has to pretend he hasn't through a series of increasingly improbable capers to keep them from coming after the money

culturalmarks.bsky.social•13 days ago

Has anyone successfully recovered bitcoin from a landfill?

isilven.bsky.social•13 days ago

The fact that the city council is refusing because they said it belongs to them due to it being at the dump is fucking DIABOLICAL.

andhewolf.bsky.social•13 days ago

Not a lawyer, but I feel like buying a dump would not give you mining rights to the garbage.

jimmyr.bsky.social•13 days ago

If you go back through the many news articles he looks more and more miserable and broken down as the years go on. Not just aging but hollowed out from his desperate search for a hard drive

spicybonuscontent.bsky.social•13 days ago

I mean even if he doesn't find his bitcoin, maybe he'll find someone else's

colinelves.bsky.social•13 days ago

Meh.

I once saw someone use a laptop containing that much BTC as a prop to raise up a computer monitor.

He should move on with his life.

nycsouthpaw.bsky.social•13 days ago

I would’ve liked some discussion of the odds a hard drive stewing in trash juice outdoors for 12 years would have recoverable data on it

jbminn.bsky.social•13 days ago

[ context: i've recovered data on many hard drives ]
in case you're serious: liquids won't impact magnetization too much over a short-ish timeframe.

what *wld* impact data recoverability is whether the case + platters became deformed from other junk getting smashed into them.

no spin == no data

apearlma.bsky.social•13 days ago

I would assume that the odds of recovery are super low, just the value if recovered is so high that even a 1% chance is a win.

cpm5280.bsky.social•13 days ago

Typically they're sealed quite well. The outer case might well be in bad shape, as well as the exposed circuit board on the underside, but the platters are likely intact. I wouldn't plug it in (frozen heads, etc), but hire expensive platter extraction/rehousing/reading.

ezrainternet.bsky.social•13 days ago

Counterpoint:

hilltopworms.bsky.social•13 days ago

thanks for the legit LOL

hugetinymistake.bsky.social•13 days ago

Mmm trash juice

brendelbored.bsky.social•13 days ago

I once lost a 20 dollar bill and felt pretty bad about it

brendelbored.bsky.social•13 days ago

The guy doesn’t seem like a bad guy (he might be idk), he’s just like yeah I guess I should probably buy a dump. I really made a whoopsie doodle on this one

dankeevy.bsky.social•13 days ago

I mean, I guess if he's going to buy a landfill for it, he may not need a crypto fortune.

canaryburgundy.bsky.social•13 days ago

This story has been going on for like 15 years. it's completely destroyed his entire life. I assume the story says this but I've stopped clicking on guardian articles lol

dkhunter.bsky.social•13 days ago

Stories about people who mined a few Bitcoin in college out of curiosity and then forgot about it used to be a whole posting genre on Reddit. Presumably, most of them managed to let it go.

Then there's this guy.

canaryburgundy.bsky.social•13 days ago

Nothing else in his head now other than the absolute certainty his fortune is in that dump. Nothing at all! it's like a fable!

dkhunter.bsky.social•13 days ago

Well, FWIW, I hope he finds the hard drive, whether the information is recoverable or not. At least he'd have some closure.

iucounu.bsky.social•13 days ago

yeah every time I hear about this guy I think, 'yes, if this had happened to me, it would likely drive me insane and I would become obsessed and it would eat the rest of my life'

pfessenbecker.bsky.social•13 days ago

wait why the fuck won't they let him look for it or at least look for it themselves? Mostly I'm pro civil servant but these sound like local douchebags drunk on the tiny amount of power they have.

pfessenbecker.bsky.social•13 days ago

Someone saying "I'm such a idiot, I accidentally threw out a billion dollar piece of plastic, can I look for it?" and you saying "HMM no, you're probably telling the truth but it's against regulations for me to open the door, I'm going to let it molder for eternity" is Kafkaesque levels of petty.

smcl.bsky.social•12 days ago

This guy is gonna find the hard drive when he is 75 years old and BTC has all-but disappeared anyway, and he’ll have a heart attack a few moments later

lizdynan.bsky.social•13 days ago

I have sometimes completely convinced myself that I lost something in a certain location. Only to have it turn up one day/month/year in a totally different and normal location.

lauraclemens.bsky.social•13 days ago

Read from paragraph 15 to find out how the hard drive went to the rubbish dump

3fecta.bsky.social•13 days ago

I envision a Burgess Meredith Twilight Zone episode type ending. He buys the landfill, then spends years searching, while bitcoin slowly loses value, secures the hard drive just as the value dips to 50 million, but the drive is corrupted.

dawnalene.bsky.social•13 days ago

I lost track of 1K cash in an envelope during my last move. That one hurt. I also lost two $500 savings bond certificates. Still, that’s not worth a dump purchase.

cshannonpdx.bsky.social•13 days ago

When I was seven, I found a five-dollar bill in the water on a trip to the Jersey Shore. I talked about that for years!

auntiegg.bsky.social•13 days ago

I searched for the other half of a $20
my dog ate. Waging machine on sanitize did not work.

kuriva.im•13 days ago

dude should check the pocket of his winter coat

ansel.tv•13 days ago

i'd pay $20 to never have to hear about this loser and his loser quest again

terianne.bsky.social•13 days ago

🤣🤣🤣

hugetinymistake.bsky.social•13 days ago

I picked up dinner the other day from a pizza place and accidentally hit the 30% tip button and that is still sitting with me

garius.bsky.social•13 days ago

He's already lost in court once, with the judge utterly dismantling his whole case.

I covered it below. A proper legal kicking of "you threw it in the bin mate. Get on with your life."

https://bsky.app/profile/garius.bsky.social/post/3lff6hknrfs2u

butchsnewname.bsky.social•13 days ago

Oh wait!

Nah. I still don’t care.

k-a-aitch.bsky.social•13 days ago

He's also a total dingus. Apparently he kept his bitcoin on one of several HDs in like his sock drawer, one day decided to clean house, threw away the wrong ones (apparently didn't label them), and then begged his gf to take the trash bags to the dump. She didn't want to, but ultimately said fine.

k-a-aitch.bsky.social•13 days ago

I don't think it was until much later that he realized his mistake. I can understand the dump not wanting the liability of everyone who throws away something by mistake pawing through heaps of dangerous trash for however long it takes. And it's still got to function as a dump.

krinkle.bsky.social•13 days ago

is this a different bitcoin dump man because the last one found it and whoops it was bitcoin express, worth much less.

lizdynan.bsky.social•13 days ago

I'm wondering about the possibility of other errors he made along the way and the treasure trove not existing at all.
Plus there's an ex-girlfriend. And a bastard of a judge.
Will Netflix dramatize this?

thedaxsymbiont.bsky.social•13 days ago

I simply don’t believe there’s a chance in hell that it’s survived however many years of rain and etc unless he for some reason tossed it out inside a very secure lockbox or something

rincewind.run•13 days ago

I love this story so much every time I get an update on it

I would also want to buy the dump

captainblye.bsky.social•12 days ago

I want to buy the dump not in the hopes of digging up the hard drive, but so I can chase him off my property with a torch and pitchfork every night.

lbeingaware.bsky.social•13 days ago

lol, another example of the vulnerability of bitcoin’s value. Hard to imagine the hard drive is still readable.

eastdundee.bsky.social•13 days ago

"Bitcoin mining"

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