This is the incredible story of Ellie and Tom Hart.
During a spring cleaning session, Ellie tidies up a drawer filled with old mail, receipts, dead batteries, tangled cords, and an old USB drive.
She ends up throwing away everything in that drawer, thinking it was just old junk.
A few days later, Tom can't find his USB drive and asks Ellie if she has seen it.
"He asked if I had seen a small black USB drive he uses to store his Bitcoin. I froze. I knew instantly. My heart sank. I told him, 'I think I threw it away.' I felt terrible."
The couple immediately tried to find the USB drive by emptying the trash bags, but to no avail.
"There was this horrible mix of panic and hope, but deep down, I knew it was already too late."
The USB drive contained the Bitcoin Tom bought in 2013...
Tom explains that over the years, his e-wallet stored on the USB drive was now worth over $3 million, but without the device, the funds are inaccessible.
Ellie considers her action "the worst mistake of all time."
The couple says they struggle to move on and think about it constantly...
"You keep replaying the scene, the moment I picked it up, the second the drive landed in the trash. I did everything to cancel it. I never thought something so valuable could seem so ordinary."
Today, they are sharing their story to encourage people to be careful to avoid such incidents.
"If someone keeps money or something important on a USB drive, please label it, lock it up, don’t make the same mistake I did."
