Is this the worst Bitcoin fail of all time?
Plus: Australia’s first spot Ethereum ETF is finally here
GM. The market’s a wild fruit salad today, but we’ve handpicked the ripest bits to keep your crypto cravings satisfied.
?? A British man is suing Newport City Council over a hard drive with the private key to 8K Bitcoins he accidentally threw away.
? News drops: Australia’s first spot ETH ETF is launching, Telegram is setting up an office in Kazakhstan, Vitalik Buterin donated $884K from memecoin sales + more
? Market flavor today
The crypto market’s catching its breath. ??? The Fear and Greed Index bounced back to 48, sliding into the “Neutral” zone. After dipping under $60K, Bitcoin has recovered, but it’s still struggling to break past the stubborn $65K ceiling. On the bright side, there’s solid demand at those lower levels, so things aren’t all bad. And here’s a bullish twist for you: German investment firm Samara AG is planning to issue €30M in bonds to buy Bitcoin and invest in funds.
Moreover, US Bitcoin ETFs saw $253.6M in inflows on Friday after a three-day outflow streak. Oh, and get this: Charles Schwab did a survey of 2,200 investors, and 45% said they’re planning to invest in crypto via ETFs next year—that’s a nice jump from 38% last year and even beats out old-school favorites like bonds and gold.
So, eyes on the horizon because the next twist is always just around the corner! ?
?? One expensive trash bag
We’ve all been there—those brain fart situations so absurd you start questioning your life. Like when you’ve got tea and cookies in front of you, and instead of dunking the cookie, you dip your fingers. Or when you switch from using your phone to your laptop and start tapping it like it’s a touchscreen. Oh, and don’t forget those moments when you accidentally throw away a hard drive holding 8,000 Bitcoins…
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Jk, the last one would never happen.
Jk x2, it actually happened to an IT guy from the UK, James Howells.
Rewind to 2009. Howells was mining Bitcoin for fun using his personal laptop (back when that was actually possible) and managed to accumulate 8K BTC, which wasn’t worth much at the time. He eventually stopped mining because the constant noise from the computer’s fan annoyed his then-partner.
Fast forward to 2013. While cleaning his office, he stumbled upon an old hard drive with data from his old computer. Thinking nothing of it, he tossed it in the trash. But that night, during the usual pre-sleep “contemplating everything” session, it hit him—getting rid of hard drives is usually not a good idea. So he decided to fish it out of the trash bag first thing in the morning. But by the time he woke up, it was already too late—his partner had already taken the trash out.
That same year, he saw a new story about this one Norwegian guy who bought an apartment with his Bitcoin profits. That’s when he remembered about his own stash. And that’s when the cold sweat started, ’cause he realized that the private key to access it was on that hard drive.
So, what did he do? Howells rushed to the landfill to explain the situation. The manager there gave him hope, saying it wasn’t impossible to locate the hard drive, but he needed the city’s permission. Which appeared to be even more difficult than the digging through the whole city’s trash part.
For the past decade, Howells has been battling with Newport City Council, trying to convince them to let him search the landfill. He’s proposed an $11M excavation plan, assuring it wouldn’t cost the council a penny; in fact, it’d be the opposite—he offered them 10% of his Bitcoin treasure if they just let him find the hard drive.
The plan? He’s narrowed down the search area to a section with about 100K tonnes of trash out of 1.4M tonnes total. He wants to take the trash from that area to a unit where it’ll be placed on a conveyor belt and scanned using AI—if anything that looks like a hard drive is found, it’ll be flagged and removed.
So, what’s up the council’s a**? Why wouldn’t they approve it? Well, they think this plan is neither practical nor legal. Besides, they’re worried about the potential environmental risks ’cause digging up all that waste might release hazardous materials.
Now, just imagine being this guy. On paper, you’re a multi-millionaire with $514M worth of BTC. But in reality, your fortune is buried somewhere between dirty diapers and spoiled milk cartons.
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Gross as it sounds, Howells isn’t ready to give up. He’s now suing the council for $647M—roughly what his Bitcoin was worth at its peak. But the real aim here isn’t the lawsuit itself; it’s to pressure the council into letting him dig, hoping they’ll want to avoid a long, messy legal fight.
And now we wait. The hearing’s set for December, so who knows? Maybe this guy will finally get a shot at finding his lost riches. Or maybe he’ll be sitting there with his fingers in a cup of tea, wondering what could’ve been. Either way, let’s just hope none of us ever end up in a situation where we literally throw away millions.
? News drops
? Monochrome Asset Management is gearing up to launch Australia’s first spot Ethereum ETF on Cboe. Trading is scheduled to start at 10 AM AEDT on Tuesday.
? Telegram is setting up a local office in Kazakhstan. This move is expected to help tighten control over the content shared on the platform.
? Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, turned $1.6M worth of memecoins that were sent to him into Ether. He then donated $884K of it to charities.
? Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen donated 1.75M XRP to the Harris-Walz 2024 campaign. It’s the first known crypto donation to the Harris campaign.
?? Mt. Gox has delayed repaying its creditors by another year, moving the deadline to October 31, 2025. Many creditors haven’t received their funds yet because they haven’t completed the necessary steps for repayment.
? Andre Cronje, co-founder of Sonic Labs, criticized Layer-2 appchains, calling them impractical for developers. He pointed out issues like high infrastructure costs, fragmented liquidity, and lack of support, which he believes are slowing down appchain adoption.
? Knowledge juice
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