This man knows exactly where his $700 million is sitting. He just cannot touch it.
James Howells is a regular IT guy from Newport, Wales. In 2013 he was cleaning out his office and found an old hard drive he had not used in years. Thought nothing of it. Threw it in the bin and moved on with his day.
On that hard drive was a Bitcoin wallet holding 7,500 coins.
In 2013 that was roughly ten thousand dollars. Not life changing. Easy to forget about.
Then Bitcoin went to ten thousand dollars a coin. Then thirty thousand. Then sixty thousand. And somewhere along the way James sat down and remembered exactly what he had thrown away. The feeling must have been indescribable.
He went to his local council and asked to search the landfill. They said no.
He came back with investors, data recovery experts and a serious excavation plan. He offered the city of Newport 25 percent of whatever he found. At today's prices that was over 175 million dollars going straight to the city.$BTC
