A man raises 11 million dollars to find his lost Crypto wallet
Well, the info felt last week but I had to tell you about it here, cos it’s too crazy and it’s been going on for too long.
It is more sad than funny, but the story is completely crazy.
First, I must tell you the story from the start….
In 2009, a Welsh developer named James Howell was among the first people to invest in Bitcoin.
For 2 years he invests and mines Bitcoin to obtain a total of 7500 Bitcoin.
As a reminder, from 2009 to February 2011 Bitcoin was below $1. This would mean that if he had decided to only buy most of his Bitcoin in 2010 ($0.06), it would have cost him $450…
Anyway, one day James stops mining Bitcoin (I couldn’t find out the real story). Still, the hard drive of his computer ends up in a drawer. (A bit weird for a guy who still believes in the project)
Time passes and then he ends up throwing it in the garbage thinking that it would no longer be of any use to him. (What developer on earth throws away their hard drive without formatting it before?)
In 2013 ….. surprise! BTC crosses the $100 mark to end the year at $1,000.
You guess what’s next?
Yeah…. the hard drive he threw away, there was James’s wallet on it. His wallet with the 7500 Bitcoin.
And then he realizes he just threw $7.5 million to the trash.
This is where the story or rather the nightmare begins for him.
At first James motivates himself and hires people to search the recycling center with him in exchange for a percentage. But without success.
It starts again in 2017 but it does not have enough equipment and no agreements with the recycling center / town hall. In the meantime, Bitcoin has increased its value and now his portfolio worth more than 60 million dollars $$$
In 2021 his Bitcoins worth 600 million dollars – it’s too much for James, he decides to call on real pros. He contacts NASA.
NASA has specialists who worked on the wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia which exploded in flight in 2003. So, they know how to do the job….
He gets a first response from them, then nothing….
James Howell decides to assemble a team of Avengers to find his precious hard drive lost 8 years ago.
He manages to convince investors to lend him 11 million dollars to return the Newport waste collection center made up of 110,000 tons of waste.
And good news, NASA has obviously accepted his request since an expert has just joined him in his task.
The team is made up of 8 experts specializing in AI, waste management and data, as well as a robot dog from Boston Dynamics to monitor the search night and day.
James’ plan is to find his hard drive, keep 30% of its contents, and leave the rest to the investors who helped him and the townspeople.
It’s totally amazing but totally risky from my point of view.
Imagine the excavations yielding no results? Who will reimburse the accrued fees?
It seems almost lost from my point of view, cos how do you know if the disc is indeed in the waste collection center?
Anyway, the problem and the reason why James never started the excavations, is that the city council of the city refuses to see such a spectacle in its waste collection center.
Suddenly the project is at a standstill even if the team is present.
Still, there’s a lot of weird stuff in this story, I hope James will find his wallet anyway.