Man who lost $780 million in Bitcoin in a landfill now wants to buy the entire dump before city closes the site (www.tomshardware.com)
from cm0002@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 06:50
https://lemmy.world/post/25464153

#technology

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Toes@ani.social on 12 Feb 07:23 next collapse

Dude needs to let go, it probably didn’t even make it to the dump.

Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 12 Feb 07:54 next collapse

Let alone survive the crushing in the back of the dump truck

PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk on 12 Feb 08:27 next collapse

Oh I don’t know, he’s already in Newport hiyoooooooooooo

towelie@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 09:06 collapse

I was in the “he needs to let it go” camp for the last 10 years. You know what? I’m changing sides. I choose to live in the timeline where garbage bitcoin man buys the dump and proves everyone wrong. He earned it

brsrklf@jlai.lu on 12 Feb 12:07 next collapse

I don’t want him to find it because I want the over-the-top movie dramatization of that guy’s descent into madness.

He can have part of the movie revenues, if he’s smart.

billiam0202@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 13:45 collapse

Nah. I’m in the “everyone involved in crypto needs repeatedly swift kicks in the nads” camp but spending the rest of your life digging in a garbage dump looking for gold is also acceptable.

AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today on 12 Feb 08:05 next collapse

There is no way the storage medium survived all of that time in a dump. If it made it that far, it’s probably crushed, turned to rust, or both. It’s a lost cause.

kamenlady@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 08:41 next collapse

The “what if” probably wouldn’t let this guy sleep.

zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com on 12 Feb 13:54 collapse

At what point is it a mental disorder

MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 12:21 collapse

In the mid 1980s I visited a landfill as part of a school project. They took a back hoe and plowed over a mound and pulled out legible newspapers from the early 1960s. A kid found a working radio. You might be surprised how well some things get preserved in landfills.

CluckN@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 15:39 next collapse

That sounds rad we visited a steel spool factory and they didn’t let us take one home.

MothmanDelorian@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 15:46 collapse

They let the kid take the radio because he said he could fix it and they wanted to distract us from the box of playboys also uncovered by the backhoe.

futatorius@lemm.ee on 12 Feb 16:36 collapse

But it’s very much luck of the draw.

vk6flab@lemmy.radio on 12 Feb 10:00 next collapse

Plot twist. It never even made it to the dump. His former partner saw the drive and took it before they split up.

AynRandLibertarian@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 10:18 next collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/263e1117-b5d0-4146-a0c1-707fe6e43e31.jpeg">

wolfylow@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 11:06 next collapse

This guy just needs to let this go! He’s wasting his life on this. Even if he finds it in the next decade - honestly I’m not sure it’s worth it.

answersplease77@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 13:00 next collapse

His wife left him because he wouldn’t stop talking about it and it became too much for her. very sad

banghida@lemm.ee on 12 Feb 13:51 collapse

He destroyed his life already. Probably a few others too.

reksas@sopuli.xyz on 12 Feb 11:48 next collapse

I’m happy i never got involved with bitcoin. I remember being mildly interested but decided to not bother. If i had a drive with almost billion on it and i had lost it or just not able to access it, it would dig at me too even if i tried to just let it go.

Damn, money really is the root of all evil.

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 12 Feb 12:33 next collapse

I messed around with bitcoin in like 2011. It seemed valueless because there were very few USD markets for it. Anyway I used to play a game where every action was a gambling mechanic in full bitcoin. Want to kick a coconut tree? It costs 1 BTC and 0-4 will drop. I had 100s of BTC at one point.

Anyway the computer had issues and then the hard drive was taken by a family member. I don’t get too upset thinking about them because I would have just spent them once they had real value.

PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk on 12 Feb 16:01 collapse

fr, i remember being mind blown when bitcoin hit £240.

If i had had some at that point i probs would have cashed out.

My old housemate lost like half a dozen btc in the Mt.Gox collapse

Evotech@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 16:34 collapse

Exactly, there’s so many points where 99% cashed out

FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world on 12 Feb 13:03 collapse

I have a friend in NYC who searches his entire apartment every year or two because he had a few BTC on an old thumb drive. It is a bummer that he lost it.

I got some dogecoin at a one cent and sold it in the twenties, which was a nice little gain, but nothing huge like being an early BTC holder.

austinfloyd@ttrpg.network on 12 Feb 17:25 next collapse

It is sad that this guy just can’t let go.

Honestly though, if he can preemptively put sufficient funds into escrow dedicated to managing all aspects of the site and engineering plans for digging with minimal perturbation of each waste cell, then let him have it*.

(* Escrow amount should be approximately $780m)

couch1potato@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 12 Feb 17:59 collapse

He’s gonna turn out like the granddad in the movie Holes