The British IT specialist, who became famous all over the world in 2013 by confessing to the loss of a hard drive with bitcoins worth $ 160 million, is still trying to find the loss.
One of the most famous crypto losers in the world reminded of himself again. An engineer from Newport in South Wales, James Howels, in the summer of 2013, threw away a hard drive from an old computer, which he used for mining back in 2009, into a landfill. According to him, a wallet with 7,500 BTC was stored on the disk. Even at that time, these bitcoins were worth about a million dollars. But the poor man did not follow the news.
In November 2013, Bitcoin rose above $1,000 for the first time in history, and it was hard to miss such news. Howells realized that his discarded disc was worth $6.5 million and rushed to the landfill. But even then, in a huge field with garbage, finding a small piece of iron was an almost unrealistic task, and the search had to be abandoned. However, Howells decided not to give up and is still fighting for his lost wealth.
Over the past few years, James Howels has repeatedly requested the Newport City Administration to organize a massive search for the HDD. Officials refused him time after time, citing inevitable environmental problems and a trivial stench throughout the city when digging up the entire territory of the landfill. In 2021, the treasure hunter offered the city authorities 25% of the value of his BTC (about $72 million at that time), but this did not help either.
Now, even taking into account the fall in the rate three times from the highs, the bitcoins of the unlucky engineer are worth more than $160 million. And Howells, disappointed in people, decided to bet on robots. He will order from the American Boston Dynamics two search robots-dogs of the Spot type worth $75,000 each. Iron friends will receive the nicknames Satoshi and Hal – in honor of the creator of Bitcoin and the cryptographer who received the first transaction. Even without taking into account overhead costs, a new attempt will cost James $150,000 – approximately 0.1% of the value of the buried treasure. Still, it’s less than 25%. But in any case, it will be necessary to persuade city officials to admit robots to the dump.
It remains a mystery how robotic dogs with cameras or even metal detectors will be able to find a 2.5 ″ laptop HDD already deep under the surface in a giant field with all kinds of garbage? And what happened to the disk after nine years of lying in a landfill? “, located in a sealed case, probably did not suffer, but with constant changes in humidity and temperature, degradation of the material is inevitable. The magnetic recording is most likely damaged, although there is still a chance to restore information on specialized equipment.
In any case, the search will cost Howels hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the chances of success leave much to be desired. Maybe the unlucky IT specialist, after so many years, again missed the media and seeks to remind himself in this way? There is little rationality in his actions, but perseverance deserves respect. The name of James Howels has already entered the history of cryptocurrencies, although not from the most positive side.
Source: Bits
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
