A British programmer is desperately trying to recover the old computer memory disk where the passwords of his Bitcoin cryptocurrency portfolio are located.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
He has now hired for help a company that previously aided NASA in recovering data from a wrecked spacecraft.<\/p>\n
James Howells from Wales has been producing bitcoin since the time when their computer “digging” did not cost much and cryptocurrencies were only known among the narrow circles of technology.<\/p>\n
He says he had accumulated 7,500 bitcoins – already worth about $ 350 million.<\/p>\n
A private cryptographic key for access to his virtual wallet was held on his computer, which last year was dumped at the Newport landfill in 2013.<\/p>\n
After realizing his mistake the man went to search for the discarded computer but in vain.<\/p>\n
Howells offered a percentage of the amount to the town council if they found the computer to help him hunt for the treasure.<\/p>\n
But already a data recovery company previously hired by NASA has offered to help Howells, British media report. Ontrack, the company from Minneapolis, USA, managed to recover the data disk of the Columbia space module that crashed in 2003, even though the vehicle was found a few months after the accident.<\/p>\n
“They were able to recover the wrecked spacecraft and do not believe that searching a landfill will be a problem.”<\/em> Howells told TheSun<\/a> .<\/p>\n According to various analyzes of the ‘blockchain’ network where bitcoin transactions are recorded, billions of dollars have been lost without a trace over the years.<\/p>\n In 2018, blockchain analysts estimated that about 3.79 million bitcoins, worth tens of billions of dollars, would never be recovered from password loss.<\/p>\n
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