in context: For years, a British computer engineer who essentially threw away the keys to his cryptocurrency vault has been trying to dig up the device on which it is stored from a local landfill. This year, he came up with the boldest project ever, but it is unlikely to be approved by the authorities.
Back in 2013, James Howells’ life changed when he threw away a hard drive that might be the most valuable in the world. Before doing so, Howells had two 2.5-inch hard drives stored in a drawer, one of which he intended to get rid of, and the other that contained a digital wallet with approximately 7,500 bitcoins. Even though bitcoin has fallen from its peak value of around $67,000, the wallet still holds the equivalent of about $185 million in digital tokens.
After accidentally throwing the wrong drive in the trash, a British computer engineer asked Newport’s city council to allow it to be dug in a landfill. However, his requests were repeatedly denied, even when he offered to pay the local government a quarter of the cryptocurrency holdings in that wallet. It turns out that their “treasure hunt” in all the forms presented over the past nine years is considered hazardous to the environment.
He said, he is not giving up yet. Howells hopes to persuade local authorities to allow them to find valuable hard drives with a new proposal that is backed by a hedge fund. Finding such a tiny device in more than 100,000 tons of waste would be a significant task, but the engineer believes the use of artificial intelligence and automation could help sort through all the waste more quickly. could.
Howells has two versions of this new plan. The first would involve sorting through all 100,000 tons for three years using a combination of human sorters, Boston Dynamics’ robotic “spot” dogs and a special conveyor belt with automated sorting systems – all of which cost $11 million. and take nine to twelve months to complete. He also envisions a scaled-down version of the operation that would only cost $6 million and take up to 18 months.
Both the schemes will involve a team of experts in various fields such as landfill excavation, waste management and data extraction. Howells also sought the help of a consultant working for OnTrack — a company that successfully recovered 99 percent of the data from the black box of the crashed Columbia space shuttle.
After excavating the waste, Howell plans to clean up and recycle as much of it as possible, while the rest will be buried again. His team is also exploring the feasibility of building a solar or wind power plant on top of a landfill site. The idea is to have as little impact on the environment as possible, but whether or not this will eventually persuade officials to flag off the operation remains to be seen.
Howells is set to offer even greater incentives, such as using part of the money to give £50 (~$61) to each of Newport’s 150,000 residents, if the operation is successful. For now, though, he can only wait for the official response and hope it turns out to be favourable.
Masthead Credit: Kanchanar
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