It's the hard drive of an old laptop, languishing in a landfill the size of a football pitch in Newport, South Wales. It belongs to James Howells, who says he accidentally threw it away in the summer of 2013 while cleaning his office. The Welshman reckons he would still be in working order today. "The outer casing may be rusty. But there's a good chance that the internal drive, where the data is stored, is still working," he told the Guardian in January 2021.
If James Howells absolutely wants to get his hands on this hard drive, it's because it contained 8,000 bitcoins, bought for next to nothing in 2009, when he started collecting cryptocurrency. Nine years after the loss of this precious hard drive, the computer engineer still has hope. He even came up with a crazy plan, estimated at 11 million euros, to recover his treasure, valued at around 168 million euros this Wednesday, July 27, although the value of bitcoin fluctuates.
Indeed, according to Business Insider, he plans to use canine robots from Boston Dynamics. These robots, which are yellow and black in color, first hit the market in 2020 at a price of $75,000. They have since been used in many situations, such as in Singapore where they monitored parks during the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure social distancing was observed.
James Howells told Business Insider that the robots would be used both for security, as roving surveillance cameras, and to scan the ground for its missing hard drive. James Howells would have developed his action plan with specialists and experts in the sector and would have set up his financing thanks to two venture capital companies. The goal ? Give yourself more chances in order to (finally) convince the Newport City Council.
Because the city, contacted several times since 2013 about this hard drive, does not want to hear about this research, the cost of which could amount to "millions of pounds, without any guarantee of finding it or that it is still in working order", according to a spokeswoman interviewed by AFP in January 2021.
According to the municipal council of this municipality, such a step would also be against the rules and would damage the environment. “The council also told James Howells on several occasions that our permit did not allow excavation of the site and that it would have a huge environmental impact on the area around it. So we have been clear that we cannot help him. in this case," said the spokesperson. "The attitude of the city council makes no sense", regretted in January 2021 James Howells in the newspaper The Guardian. The computer engineer had offered him 25% of the value of the bitcoins if the hard drive was found.
Newport City Council reiterated its refusal in July 2022. According to a spokeswoman interviewed by Business Insider, there is "nothing James Howells can present to us" that could convince the council to let him access the site. “His proposals pose a significant ecological risk, which we cannot accept and cannot even consider because of the terms of our permit,” she added. The Welshman will therefore surely have to wait a little longer before getting his hands on his hard drive.
