It’s a sad day for James Howells, a day that might haunt him for the rest of his life. Since 2009, Howell had been growing a massive stash of Bitcoin. When he started, Bitcoin wasn’t a popular thing, and it wasn’t worth much of anything. But these days, Bitcoin is worth around $1000 (USD). Too bad Howell accidentally threw away 7,500 worth of Bitcoin, which is worth around $7.5 million (USD) at the time of this writing.

How did it happen? Basically, Howell threw away a hard disk drive that contains the key needed to access the coins. Because of the way Bitcoin works, there is no way for Howell to recover the money without that drive. So now all that cash is somewhere under a lot of garbage with no chance of anyone finding it. It’s basically a real-life treasure hunt for anyone who are interested in traversing the garbage dump for this massive Bitcoin fortune.

“I’m at the point where it’s either laugh about it or cry about it,” Howells told The Guardian. “Why aren’t I out there with a shovel now? I think I’m just resigned to never being able to find it.”

What he needs to do is pay professional gold diggers to get the job done. Then again, he might not have the cash to hire any one. If he does though, we recommend Nathan Drake although things could get nasty quite fast.

[via The Guardian]