THE $800 MILLION BITCOIN HUNT: MAN'S FINAL BID TO RETRIEVE LOST HARD DRIVE
A British man who accidentally discarded a hard drive containing Bitcoin worth around $800 million is making a last-ditch effort to recover his lost fortuneâoffering to buy the landfill where it was dumped before the site is permanently shut down.
James Howells, a computer science analyst from Newport, Wales, has spent over a decade battling local authorities for permission to search the massive waste site where he believes his missing hard drive is buried. With the Newport City Council preparing to close the landfill, Howells is making a final plea.
A Costly Mistake
Howells' ordeal began in 2013 when he mistakenly discarded the hard drive while cleaning out his office. A miscommunication with his then-partner led to the deviceâcontaining the only copy of his 51-character private key necessary to access his Bitcoin walletâbeing unknowingly thrown away.
Back in the late 2000s, when cryptocurrency was still in its infancy, Howells mined Bitcoin as a hobby. He only realized his devastating mistake months later, by which time Bitcoin's value had surged.
Since then, he has repeatedly attempted to recover the device, even offering to fund an excavation and share 25% of the Bitcoin's value with the Newport City Council. However, local authorities have consistently denied his requests. A judge previously ruled that Howells had "no reasonable grounds" for legal action and stated there was "no realistic prospect" of success if the case proceeded to trial.
A Race Against Time
With the landfill's closure approaching, Howells hopes that purchasing the site will finally allow him to search for his long-lost Bitcoin fortune.
"This needle is very, very, very valuableâ$800 million," he said. "Which means I'm willing to search every piece of hay in order to find the needle."
Despite his determination, the Newport City Council has warned that the chances of locating the 12-year-old hard drive remain slim. However, Howells refuses to give up, believing that buried beneath the landfill's mountains of waste could be one of the most valuable lost fortunes in history.
2025-02-14T18:44:04Z