Quantum Computers Vs Garbage Excavators: The Race For The Lost Bitcoin

NEWPORT, WALES - MARCH 18: An aerial view of a Newport Council landfill site on March 18, 2022 ... [+] (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)
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I am sure you are familiar with the story of James Howells, the unfortunate chap who threw away a hard disk containing some 8,000 bitcoins, worth hundreds of millions dollars at today’s prices. It’s a story that has been a focus of media attention from the very beginning, but I think it has just taken an interesting turn because the race to find the lost bitcoin is hotting up.
The Lost Bitcoin Story
Sometime in the summer of 2013, Mr. Howells accidentally disposed of an encrypted hard drive contained the private key for 8,000 bitcoins, worth around $765 million at the time of writing. His former girlfriend took the hard drive off to the local council rubbish disposal centre from where it was taken to a landfill site in Newport, Wales. When he realised his mistake, he set about getting together funding and a team of specialists to excavate the site, offering to give the city 30% of the value of the coins (then worth some $70m) if they let him dig.
The site contains around 350,000 tonnes of garbage but Mr. Howells thinks that he can narrow down the search area to some 10,000-15,000 tonnes. It doesn’t matter, though, because the city refused permission because excavating the site would let harmful substances escape “potentially serious risks” to public health and the environment. Having lost that case, which means that he cannot excavate the landfill site, he is now looking into the possibility of trying to buy the landfill site, which is about to be closed and turned into a solar farm, so that he can continue the search.
Personally, I think this would make a great reality television show and I can imagine the whole thing being funded by Netflix, starting with the mundane domestic scene of the hard disk being tossed out, going through the various courtroom battles and appeals and finishing up with teams of volunteers combing through decomposing garbage until the exciting moment when someone finds the black bag and opens it up to find that the disk is still there! And then more excitement as the disk is taken for forensic examination, with a tense wait while top data recovery experts are flown in from across the globe until finally the data is recovered to the sound of popping champagne corks. Great stuff!
There’s even more drama to come though, because James’ race is a race against time. It’s a race to see who gets to the missing bitcoins first: garbage explorers or quantum computers. The truth is that James’ fortune may well be spirited away by remote quantum attackers long before the diggers uncover the missing black refuse bag containing the missing hard disk.