Engineer Offers $72 Million To Look For Hard Drive With 7,500 Bitcoins

In 2013, British IT engineer James Howells from New Port City, Wales, accidentally threw away his hard drive with 7,500 Bitcoins inside when cleaning his house. At that time, one bitcoin was only about $130. However, on January 15, the price of this virtual currency has skyrocketed to $38,000, meaning that Howells has lost the Bitcoins worth up to $286 million.

The British engineer began “mining” Bitcoins in 2009 with his personal laptop. In 2013, he stopped mining Bitcoin and sold this laptop on eBay. But he still kept the hard drive.

In mid-2013, during a house move, Howells accidentally threw the hard drive in the trash at a garbage disposal area near his house. The guy hasn’t had a single thought about this as he was busy with his family life.

It was not until the Bitcoin craze peaked at the end of 2017 that Howells immediately planned to dig up the city’s landfill to find the lost hard drive. However, the plan is considered extremely challenging and expensive.

The plan itself is also unlikely to get approval from the New Port City Council. The digging, storing, and disposing of waste can have huge impacts on the surrounding environment, according to a council spokesperson.

Even so, Howells hasn’t given up. Most recently, the engineer offered to donate 25% of the value of the Bitcoin in the hard drive to the anti-COVID-19 campaign of New Port City. In return, James Howells is allowed to search the city’s landfill for the hard drive. The engineer believes that, after years buried under the giant landfill, the hard drive can still operate.

As for the cost of the search, Howells said that he had received financial support from a hedge fund and had had a detailed plan to look for the hard drive.

However, Newport city council officials haven’t approved Howells’ proposal.

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