An estimated 50% of all gold ever mined on Earth came from a single plateau in South Africa: Witwatersrand.
100 Mind-Blowing Mined Facts
Around 50% of the mined gold on Earth comes from one source. This gold once came from a single plateau located in South Africa. This plateau is known as the Witwatersrand.
This man threw a hard drive loaded with 7500 bitcoins into the trash. James Howells mined 7,500 Bitcoins in 2009 and stored them on a hard drive. At that point, Bitcoin’s value amounted to almost nothing. The cryptocurrency slowly started to grow in value after a few years, and Howells thought he owned a small fortune. Only then did he realize he accidentally threw away the hard drive sometime in 2013? Howells lives in Wales and contacted the Newport City Council to excavate the local landfill. He offered the City Council over $70 million if the hard drive was recovered. Based on today’s rate, the hard drive is worth more than $375 million. The City council baulked at the offer due to environmental regulations and the required cost.
There are only 21 million Bitcoins that can be mined in total. You’d think as it’s a digital currency, the number of bitcoins available would be unlimited. However, if this was the case, that would devalue the currency and render it worthless.