James Howells, a man who says he lost a massive fortune in Bitcoin in a landfill, now says he’s planning to use Artificial Intelligence to locate it.
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The 38-year-old from Newport, Wales, has spent the better part of a decade working frantically trying to locate a hard drive that was accidentally thrown away. According to him, the hard drive contains 8,000 units of the valuable crypto.
The Lost Bitcoin Fortune Has Increased in Value Since Then
According to Howells, his digital currency was worth approximately $5 million when it was accidentally thrown in the trash. The stash is now worth over $280 million.
Unfortunately, in that ten-year period, the Newport council has repeatedly turned down his request for permission to excavate the dumpsite where he believes his hard drive is buried.
The IT engineer is so convinced that his fortune is buried under a ton of waste, that he has promised to donate 25% of the funds he retrieves in the drive to local community charities.
Howells Is Sure He Has Narrowed Down the Site Where his Bitcoin Is Buried
The engineer says that based on the amount of time that has elapsed since his massive loss, he has identified the place where the Bitcoin most likely is buried.
“It’s a disused section of the site,” he claims.
He adds that if allowed to excavate the site, he would take the landfill to a unit where it will then be placed on a conveyor belt, and scanned with an AI system. If the AI system stumbles upon something that looks like a hard drive, it will be flagged and picked up for further analysis.
The Bitcoin investor also believes that the council’s concerns over the environment are exaggerated. He says that his proposed retrieval process will be carried out to the highest standards with little or no negative impact on the environment.
He added that he has employed two barristers and a King’s Counsel to argue his case. He plans to go all the way to the Supreme Court, if that is what it will take for him to recover his lost Bitcoin.
The Council Is Not Moved over the Bitcoin
A spokesperson for the Newport Council said that they have been contacted since 2013 over the issue. However, they are adamant that they will not greenlight an excavation because such an undertaking would have a massive negative environmental impact on the surrounding area.
