The British threw out a hard drive with a quarter billion in the military-technical cooperation

Newport resident James Howells accidentally threw away the drive containing the keys to 7,500 bitcoins.

Howells threw away the hard drive in 2013 whenthe exchange rate was several times lower. When the IT specialist first remembered the loss, the value of the cryptocurrency on it had reached $9 million. At current prices there  is over $273 million in BTC. 

Now he is ready to pay local authorities more than a quarter of the funds in his wallet (about $ 71 million), if he is allowed to excavate the landfill.

Newport authorities rejected the man's request.Officials said excavating the dump would cost millions of pounds. If the disk is inoperative or not found – all losses will fall on the city budget.

In addition, the excavation itself will have a negative impact on the environment.

The Briton, in turn, developed a plansearches based on the exact date the disc was sent to the landfill. In his opinion, garbage was accumulated in certain places at certain periods. He is willing to hire a professional search team and believes that the drive is in working order or at least recoverable.

James Howells – not the only victim of careless storage of wallets and keys. About 20% of all existing BTC is considered lost (approximately $140 billion).

Last week, a programmer from the USA said that he had lost the password for a wallet with 70002 BTC.

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