James Howells, an IT engineer in Newport, England, started mining Bitcoin in 2009. At that time, Bitcoin had just been created and few people knew its value. Howells earned 7,500 Bitcoins through mining. A few years later, he stored this Bitcoin wallet on a hard drive and forgot about it. In 2013, when he was cleaning his house, he accidentally threw the hard drive with Bitcoin into the trash.
At first, he didn't care, but as the price of Bitcoin rose, he suddenly realized that his lost hard drive was worth a lot of money. However, when he returned to the garbage station, the hard drive had been sent to the landfill. Howells begged the local government to allow him to dig for the hard drive in the landfill, and even promised to donate some of the Bitcoin for public utilities if the hard drive was found. However, due to environmental issues and huge expenses, the government rejected his request. As the price of Bitcoin soared, the lost hard drive is now worth more than $300 million, becoming one of the most famous lost stories in the history of the cryptocurrency circle.