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February 24, 2020 02:01 pm

Drug Dealer Loses $58M in Bitcoin After Landlord Accidentally Throws Codes Out

An anonymous reader shares a report: Between 2011 and 2012, 49-year-old Clifton Collins bought 6,000 Bitcoin using money he earned from growing and selling weed, reports The Irish Times. At the time, the cryptocurrency's price varied between $4 and $6. Today it stands at over $9,700. But Collins isn't enjoying any euphoria for the windfall -- because his landlord threw out his Bitcoin codes. The Irish Times reports that Collins was arrested in 2017 for growing and selling weed, and was subsequently hit with a five-year prison sentence. Following this, his landlord sent many of Collins' possessions to a local dump during the process of clearing out Collins' room. One such item was a fishing rod case, which housed a pice of A4 paper with â53.6 million ($58 million) in Bitcoin codes printed onto it. Cryptocurrency is bought through so-called cryptowallets. Once you buy Bitcoin, the cryptowallet issues you a code that's needed to access it. Anyone who gets that code can access and potentially steal the cryptocurrency, so buyers are usually encouraged to hide their codes somewhere safe. In 2017, Collins spread his 6,000 Bitcoin across 12 accounts in order to guard against losing his crypto-fortune, according to the Times. He printed out the codes to his Bitcoin stash on a piece of A4 paper, the same paper he stuffed into the aforementioned fishing rod case.

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