Since 2013, James Howells has been trying to recover a hard drive containing a private key controlling 8000 BTC, which he mistakenly sent to the dump. After having suffered several refusals from the town hall of Newport, in Wales, to carry out searches, he tries his luck again with an action plan involving robotic dogs from Boston Dynamics.
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$170 million worth of BTC lost in landfill
Investors with some seniority in the crypto ecosystem may already know the story of James Howells, the man who sent to landfill a hard disk containing the private key of an address controlling 8000 BTC. This early miner actually made this mistake between June and August 2013.
If at the time, this already represented a quite decent sum, these bitcoins are now worth 170 million dollars environ.
When he realized that he had no other backups of this private key, he tried to convince the town hall of Newport, the Welsh village where he lives, to let him search the landfill. So far, his requests have been met with denials.
The main argument used by the municipality concerns ecology. Indeed, lifting the mountain of waste under which this hard drive would be could turn out harmful to the environment.
Today, James Howells comes up with a new plan to fix his mistake: search the area with robotic dogs de Boston Dynamics.
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A well-defined action plan
In an attempt to convince the municipality, James Howells established two business plans for the excavations. One with a budget of 6 million dollars, for a duration of 18 months, and the other over three years with a budget of 11 million dollars. Thus, he hopes to have one of two projects accepted, to excavate the 110,000 tons of waste from this landfill.
Boston Dynamics robots would be equipped with surveillance camera to prevent theft, but also to scan the ground during this quest. All this waste would also be analyzed using different artificial intelligence tools.
Provided the green light is given to search the landfill and the operation is successful, bitcoiner plans to donate a significant portion of the profits of the sale of these BTC. The city council and the people of Newport would indeed be entitled to their share. It will also be necessary to finance all these operations.
However, many variables can prevent a positive outcome of this story for James Howells. Of course, the city must to agree, and even with this, there is no guarantee that the hard drive will be found. Even if that were the case, it is to be hoped that his data are still usable.
To avoid such situations, it is best to store your private key on different media. Also, a hard drive isn’t necessarily a good idea, because of the possibility a technical problem.
Companies like Ledger market, in addition to their hardware wallets, secure ways to store your private key by updating it. shelter from extreme conditions. This will pass for example by a sealed capsule, or a steel plate on which one reconstitutes his sentence of recovery. These different tools can then be kept in complete safety, without fear of wear and tear over time.
👉 Also in the news – Sango Coin: the Central African Republic has started selling its token
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Source : Video report
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I timidly discovered the world of blockchain at the end of 2018 during my quest for financial freedom. Initially invested moderately, it was only two years later that I took the gamble of betting everything on the movement that was taking shape then. I then dedicate 2021 to training myself better to acquire more knowledge and seriousness. As I often like to say: I still have a billion things to learn. And what I do know, I want to share with you.
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Vincent Mayor
230 articles
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