$950 million worth of "junk": That Bitcoin hard drive that was thrown away has become the most painful regret in the history of encryption.



In 2013, British engineer James Howells casually threw an old hard drive into the trash, never expecting that this simple action would become one of the most regrettable "accidents" in the cryptocurrency world a decade later— the hard drive contained the private keys to 8,000 Bitcoins, and today this asset has soared to a value of $950 million, yet it has become a digital treasure forever buried in a landfill.

For the past decade, Howell's life has seemed entangled in this "misstep." He has scoured all fragments of memory, even digging into his own pockets to request the government to allow excavation of the landfill, but environmental regulations have acted like a cold barrier, completely severing his connection to nearly $1 billion in wealth. Watching the Bitcoin price surge to new heights time and again, he could only helplessly watch this "digital gold" lie silent in the dirt, becoming the most expensive "waste" in the history of encryption.

This thrilling experience hides three heart-wrenching revelations:

- The private key is everything: In the world of blockchain, no bank will guard your assets for you; a string of private keys is the only proof of wealth. Howells' story exposes a harsh reality - a small oversight could turn billions of wealth into a mirage. Hardware wallets and multiple backups are never an overreaction.
- The dividends of the era often slip away unnoticed: the regrets of early Bitcoin holders are no longer news. Some have locked their assets by forgetting their passwords, while others sold early, thinking it "wasn't worth much," ultimately missing out on financial freedom. Howells' hard drive is merely the most dramatic footnote in this collective regret.
- Visible wealth may not be truly owned: even if one knows where the wealth is hidden in a landfill, the barriers of law and reality can still deter people. The more freedom there is in the decentralization of blockchain, the more unshakeable the rules of the real world are.

Now, Howells has finally given up the search. That discarded hard drive has become a warning sign etched in the history of encryption currency: in this field where opportunities and risks intertwine, asset security is always more important than chasing profits. #ETH突破$4,600#
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