What does losing over $700 million feel like? According to the man who did it, it’s like “burning a Picasso painting without knowing it.”
James Howells, a computer engineer from Newport, Wales, has finally given up on a 12-year quest to recover a misplaced hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin—now valued at approximately $751 million—that he accidentally threw away in 2013.
Howells had been ahead of the curve, mining the Bitcoin in 2009 when they weren’t worth anywhere near as much as they are now. The hard drive, containing the private key essential for accessing the cryptocurrency, was mistakenly thrown into a landfill by his then-partner.
Over the years, Howells made numerous appeals to Newport City Council for permission to excavate the landfill, proposing various recovery plans and even offering a share of the potential fortune to the council and local residents.
Despite assembling a team of experts and securing funding for the excavation, the council consistently denied his requests, citing environmental concerns and the lack of a guarantee that the hard drive could be found or would still function.
In a final attempt, Howells pursued legal action against the council, seeking either access to the landfill, which holds more than 1.4m tonnes of waste, or £495 million in compensation. However, in January 2025, the High Court dismissed his case, ruling that there were no reasonable grounds for the claim and that the hard drive legally belonged to the council once it entered the landfill.
In a last-ditch attempt he tried to buy the landfill site itself, but it never came to be: “If Newport City Council would be willing, I would potentially be interested in purchasing the landfill site ‘as is’ and have discussed this option with investment partners and it is something that is very much on the table.”
The authorities are planning to close the tip in the 2025-26 financial year, with a deal for a solar farm on the land set to go through.
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