In Wales, a programmer is trying to use artificial intelligence to find a hard drive with $150 million worth of bitcoins he threw away.
The Guardian writes about it.
In 2013, while cleaning out his office, James Howells threw away a hard drive from an old laptop containing 8,000 bitcoins, which he now believes is lying in a landfill in Newport, South Wales.
Newport Council has previously refused repeated requests of the 37-year-old for search because of the threat to the environment. He proposed using artificial intelligence technology to control a mechanical arm that would filter the trash and then collect it manually at a facility near the landfill.
According to the plans, Howells will hire a number of environmental protection and data recovery experts, and while the search continues, they will bring in robot dogs to act as security guards so that no one else can try to steal the hard drive. The Welshman estimated the entire scheme at $10 million.
Howells estimates that the search will take between 9 months and a year, but even if he gets permission from the board, there is no guarantee that the search will be successful or that the bitcoins can be recovered from the hard drive.
If the operation is successful, Howells has promised to use the money to help the Newport community and invest in a number of cryptocurrency projects.