I'm wondering who else could have been mining coins back then aside from Satoshi and Hal. I'm sure there was a handful of other individuals.[/size]
I don't know how credible it is, but James Howells (the guy with the most expensive HDD) claims he was one of the first to mine with Satoshi. However, as far as we know, he still hasn't found his HDD, and considering that he claims that the disk has encryption, we can assume that it is not his coins.
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I knew about James Howell and his famous story of lost bitcoin in a HDD and his attempt to rescue it from a landfill. For anyone who did not know about James.
James Howell lost 8,000 bitcoins by throwing away a HDD in 2013, 11 years ago.
...When asked what he will talk about, he goes on to explain that he’s been involved with Bitcoin since December 2008, which is when he first downloaded the whitepaper and software. James says he was one of the first six people to run and mine Bitcoin. He mined with his machine connected with the creator of Bitcoin – ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’...The lost hard drive also contains “the real IP address of satoshi as well as the wallet file,” adding: “not that I would dox satoshi ?”.
Honestly, it is my first time to know about this information and from James. I have been here many years but I learn something new today from you, thanks for sharing it.