Hoarders everywhere may be feeling smug after a British man threw a hard drive containing more than $9 million in bitcoin into the trash.
The device is now buried under a mountain of garbage at a landfill site in Wales. It will be almost impossible to find.
James Howells got rid of the drive, which holds a digital store of 7,500 bitcoins, between June and August this year.
The IT worker mined the virtual currency four years ago when it was the exclusive domain of tech geeks.
Back then bitcoin was worth very little. On Friday, the cryptocurrency broke through $1,200, making the missing hard drive worth around $9 million.
Related: Bitcoin worth almost as much as gold
Howells had been hanging onto it for several years before deciding to clean up his home.
After discovering the mistake late last week, a "devastated" Howells began a frantic search through computer files and other drives for a backup. There isn't one.
A trip to the garbage dump was the only option.
"As soon as I saw the site, I thought you've got no chance. The area covered is huge," he told CNN.
A representative for Newport City Council said a thing discarded in the mid year months would now be covered under 25,000 cubic meters of waste and earth.
The gathering, which works the landfill, said it has recovered things in a few conditions "yet this would need to be done rapidly after it was discarded."
Howells said he's had a wide range of recommendations messaged to him about how to recover the drive.
Be that as it may, good natured people shouldn't try making a beeline for the tip for his benefit - it's shut to the general population for security reasons.
Related: 8 things you can purchase with bitcoin
Examiners have helped control bitcoin's stunning ascent this year.
A developing number of organizations now acknowledge bitcoins, including some Subway sandwich shops and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space travel wander, however faultfinders guarantee it's probably not going to wind up noticeably a genuine cash.
The program behind bitcoin was made secretly and presented on the web in 2010. Not at all like customary cash, bitcoins are not overseen by a focal specialist and exist just in the internet.
- CNN's Adam Dunnakey added to this report.
