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It was announced yesterday that DriveSavers, who specialize in retrieving lost data from damaged drives, can now recover lost BitCoins. DriveSavers have been helping many customers and companies for more than 27 years, and have even helped Google, Lucasfilm and NASA retrieve some of their own lost data. This is a great new step in data recovery, especially when it comes to data that is worth more than just sentimental value.
WHAT ARE BITCOINS?
BitCoins are a form of digital currency (also known as crypto-currency) that emerged in the digital market back in 2009. At this point BitCoins were only valued at $0.30 per coin, now each coin goes for over $800, which is a pretty decent investment if you were quick enough to start collecting.
To build up a digital wallet with BitCoins is rather easy, provided you have the necessary hardware to do so. The whole process really only requires a good graphics card, a computer, and an internet connection. Once connected to a specific “pool” or server, the computer will use its GPU/CPU in order to “mine” for blocks of BitCoins.
An easy analogy would be to compare mining for BitCoins, to mining for gold: you have a miner (your computer), who works to break down coal (blocks) to get to the gold/oil inside (BitCoins). You can even buy specific hardware, PCIe cards that have the sole purpose and function to mine for BitCoins. It sounds pretty simple, does it not?
The problem with mining for BitCoins lies with the actual quantity of them. Similar to gold or oil, once all the BitCoins are found there is nothing left to mine for. At the time of writing this article, it is possible to mine up to 3600 BitCoins per day, and every four years the quantity available to be mined will be cut in half. The competition to build up the most BitCoins has become quite extensive, to the point where it is ill-advised to start mining if you are looking to make a profit.
You store your BitCoins in a digital wallet, which is a very similar program to online banking. The digital wallet can be web-based or it can be a program that is installed on your computer. This wallet allows you to send and receive BitCoins, as well as store them there if you are not the spending type.
RECOVERING BITCOINS
Recently, a customer with DriveSavers had mined a fair amount of BitCoins and had them stored on his Microsoft Surface Pro. Unfortunately one day, his Surface had encountered some data loss, and had its ability to boot up disabled. To add insult to injury, his BitCoins were not backed up.
Luckily enough for him, after 10 days DriveSavers were able to restore his BitCoin investment. During this 10-day span, his investment had doubled in value to the point where he could purchase a house and furnish it.
DriveSavers provided some insight into how to protect your digital wallet, and that the best advice was to remember the three rules of safe computing: encrypt, secure, and backup.
For more information on DriveSavers, and their recent evolution to BitCoin recovery, head on over to their website here.
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