(Newser)
– The 7,500 bitcoins James Howells had on an old hard drive was worth about $ 9 million when he realized he had thrown the drive in the trash in the summer of 2013. It was bad enough, but the virtual currency is now worth about 273 million dollars. , Reports CNN. “I had two identical hard drives and I threw out what wasn’t right,” Howells said. “Now I have to laugh.” He wants to dig up a part of a landfill to find the hard drive and believes he has a plan to ensure everyone wins. Howells would pay the government of Newport, Wales, a quarter of the value of the treasury, more than $ 70 million. The city could split its share among the population, which Howells said would reach more than $ 200 per person, “if I have to find and retrieve bitcoins.” A hedge fund is supporting his research, he said, according to the Guardian, so it wouldn’t cost Newport anything. The hedge fund would take 50% of the prize and Howells would keep 25%.
Howells, a computer engineer, said he hopes the hard drive has not deteriorated to the point that bitcoins would not be accessible. “The outside case could be rusty,” he said. “But the inner disk, where the data is stored, should have a lot of chances that it will still work.” But a city spokeswoman seemed tired of the issue. “Since 2014 Newport City Council has been contacted several times about the possibility of recovering computer hardware that was said to contain bitcoins,” he said. The cost of the excavation “could reach millions of pounds, with no guarantee of finding it or that it is still in good working order.” The license permit does not allow excavation, he said, and there would also be an environmental cost to the project. Howells has been so informed, he said. “So we’ve made it clear that we can’t help him in this matter.” (Read more bitcoin stories).