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AFTER 12 YEARS, MAN WHO LOST $742M IN BITCOIN HARD DRIVE FINALLY STOPS SEARCHING

The meme is structured in three sections: a top headline, a middle collage, and a bottom cartoon. The headline reads 'AFTER 12 YEARS, MAN WHO LOST $742M IN BITCOIN HARD DRIVE FINALLY STOPS SEARCHING'. The middle section features a circular photo of a man (likely James Howells) at a desk with a Bitcoin logo and hard drive, alongside an image of a landfill with a Komatsu excavator. The bottom section shows a tired cartoon miner walking away from a cave overflowing with diamonds. The humor hinges on the irony of the man stopping his search just as he might have found the valuable hard drive, referencing the 'he was about to find it' trope.
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AFTER 12 YEARS, MAN WHO LOST $742M IN BITCOIN HARD DRIVE FINALLY STOPS SEARCHING

Overview

The meme is structured in three sections: a top headline, a middle collage, and a bottom cartoon. The headline reads 'AFTER 12 YEARS, MAN WHO LOST $742M IN BITCOIN HARD DRIVE FINALLY STOPS SEARCHING'. The middle section features a circular photo of a man (likely James Howells) at a desk with a Bitcoin logo and hard drive, alongside an image of a landfill with a Komatsu excavator. The bottom section shows a tired cartoon miner walking away from a cave overflowing with diamonds. The humor hinges on the irony of the man stopping his search just as he might have found the valuable hard drive, referencing the 'he was about to find it' trope.

Origin notes

This meme originates from Reddit's 'Meme' community. It is a user-created collage combining elements of a real news story about James Howells, who lost a hard drive with $742 million in Bitcoin in 2013 and ceased searching in 2025, with a fictional cartoon illustration to emphasize the irony of missed opportunity. The creator used photo editing software to merge the news-related images and add text overlays.

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This meme references the viral real-life story of a man who lost an extremely valuable Bitcoin storage hard drive. The background displays a large coastal landfill site with a yellow excavator digging through piles of garbage. Two circular inset images are placed on the left: one is a portrait of James Howells, the man who lost the hard drive, sitting at a desk in front of a computer, and the other is a photo of a stack of gold-colored Bitcoin coins. Bold white text with a red border at the bottom reads 'MAN ENDS HIS 12 YEAR SEARCH FOR LOST HARD DRIVE HOLDING $742 MILLION IN BITCOIN'. The original 9Gag title 'How not to sleep at night' refers to the fact that the regret from this costly, avoidable mistake is the kind of thought that would keep people awake at night.

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