After flipping through a garbage dump for 12 years, this man chose to give up 920 million dollars.

Written by: Azuma, Odaily

After a long search of 12 years, British man James Howells has decided to give up on searching for a hard drive he once discarded that contained 8000 BTC (approximately 920 million USD at a price of 115,000 USD each).

Odaily Daily Report Note: Regarding the specific quantity of lost BTC, although early British media reports stated it was 7500 coins, later media reports and Howells' description indicated it was 8000 coins, so this article will use the latter figure.

Accidentally lost 8000 BTC

James Howells was born in the 1980s in Newport, Wales. Influenced by his mother, who worked in the microchip production industry, Howells was exposed to computer technology at an early age. As a teenager, he became a regular on the internet and started assembling computers at the age of 13, eventually becoming a computer engineer.

As early as the end of 2008, Howells was introduced to Bitcoin knowledge. On February 15, 2009, Howells began mining Bitcoin using a Dell XPS laptop – The Daily Telegraph recognized him as one of the earliest miners in the Bitcoin network, and The New Yorker pointed out that there were only five miners in the entire network at the time he participated.

However, Howells' mining work did not last long because his girlfriend kept complaining about the loud noise and overheating of the laptop during mining... In 2010, Howells accidentally spilled lemonade on the computer, which broke it, so he disassembled it and removed the parts, most of which were thrown away or sold, while the hard drive containing the private key information of 8000 BTC was left lying in a drawer.

From June 20 to August 10, 2013, Howells mistakenly discarded the hard drive as waste. Howells later stated that it was his ex-girlfriend Hafina Eddy-Evans who transported the trash containing the hard drive to the landfill, but Eddy-Evans claimed that Howells begged her to help dispose of these waste items, denying any wrongdoing on her part, while Howells stated that he believed subconsciously that she should be responsible for it.

Howells recalled later: "At that time, I didn't pay much attention to Bitcoin because I was distracted. After that, I had several children and started renovating my house, so I completely forgot about Bitcoin until it appeared in the news again."

In November 2013, The Guardian reported speculating that the hard drive had been buried about 0.9-1.5 meters underground at the Newport Docksway landfill, and Howells also admitted in the interview that this BTC might have been permanently discarded.

The Newport City Council subsequently pointed out that the hard drive may be buried under 25,000 cubic meters (approximately 110,000 to 200,000 tons) of waste. The former landfill manager confirmed that it is located in a 15,000-ton landfill area named Cell-2 (accumulation area from August to November 2013), with a total landfill volume of 1.4 million tons.

The price of the currency appreciates, searching is hindered.

As the price of BTC continues to rise, Howells has begun to repeatedly attempt to search for the hard drive, but has been rejected multiple times by the local council for various reasons.

In December 2017, the Newport City Council rejected Howells' search application for the landfill site, citing costs, environmental impact, equipment corrosion risks, and the potential for illegal activities related to a "gold rush." In January 2021, Howells proposed to donate 25% of these bitcoins (worth £52.5 million at the time) to the local 316,000 residents (about £175 per person), but the council again rejected it on the grounds of violating licensing regulations.

The spokesperson for the Newport City Council stated in an interview with CNN that local government departments have received multiple inquiries since 2013 about whether they could assist in retrieving a hard drive that allegedly contains Bitcoin. The council did not reject this proposal but was not permitted to excavate the site. "The council has repeatedly informed Mr. Howells that, according to our licensing regulations, it is not possible to excavate landfills, and the excavation itself would have a significant environmental impact on the surrounding area. The costs of excavating the landfill, storing, and processing waste could reach millions of pounds, and there is no guarantee that the hard drive would be found or that it would still function properly."

However, Howells insisted at this time that the hard drive could still function normally under the protection of the protective shell and the anti-corrosion cobalt layer of the glass platter — after all, with the value of these BTC skyrocketing, no one could easily give up such a large fortune.

To obtain the landfill access permit from the council, Howells had drafted multiple detailed plans to specifically address the council's concerns. During this period, a hedge fund expressed interest in financing Howells (with both parties negotiating a 50% share of the profits), planning to locate hard drives through municipal waste records and have them processed by a professional data recovery team. At that time, Howells budgeted £5 million for the 9 to 12 months of excavation work. In August 2022, with the assistance of some venture capital funds (which would take a 30% profit share), Howells upgraded the search plan to use AI robotic arms to scan waste, deployed drones and Boston Dynamics robotic dogs for security, and formed an environmental team, with the budget also increasing to £10-11 million.

In order to obtain community support as much as possible and subsequently secure the search permit from the parliament, Howells also proposed to use the profits to develop a community-owned mining facility at the landfill, which would utilize solar or wind energy.

On September 6, 2023, Howells, who had been waiting for a response to his application, commissioned his legal team to issue an open letter to the Newport City Council, declaring an intention to file a lawsuit. The open letter demanded that the city suspend construction at the landfill, while also claiming £446 million and applying for a judicial review of the Council's decision to refuse access to the site. Two months later, his legal team wrote to the Council again, requesting permission to access the site before resorting to court.

As of October 2024, the Bitcoin valuation on the hard drive has reached $750 million. Howells ultimately sued the council for a claim amount of £495 million, but the council argued that under waste disposal regulations, the ownership of the hard drive belongs to the municipality.

On January 9, 2025, the judge ultimately ruled to dismiss Howells' lawsuit, stating that the case "lacked reasonable grounds" and "had no prospect of success." Howells expressed to the media that he was "extremely disappointed," but also revealed his new plan to issue a new cryptocurrency anchored by the unrecoverable Bitcoin.

Searching without results, seeking a new path.

Due to the inability to obtain entry permission from the parliament, Howells ultimately chose to abandon the search job, but chose another potential path.

Back in May of this year, Howells disclosed on his personal X that he intended to tokenize 21% of the 8000 BTC, aiming to launch during TOKEN 2049 Singapore on October 1, planning to raise 75 million dollars... However, in the following months, Howells has not mentioned this matter again on his personal social media channels, and it seems that the plan has already failed—after all, everyone knows that it is highly unlikely to recover BTC, and still wanting to raise 75 million dollars feels a bit greedy.

This morning, Howells disclosed a new plan for the tokenization of the BTC, planning to issue 800 billion Ceiniog Coin (INI). The token aims to be proposed by the end of the year, built on the Bitcoin network, supported by OP_RETURN, and integrated with Stacks, Runes, and Ordinals, with each INI pegged to the value of 1 Satoshi in the BTC...

Howells finally released a passionate statement: "To all the senior and outstanding gatekeepers who have blocked me for more than a decade: You can shut the doors! You can control the courts! But you cannot stop the blockchain! Cryptocurrency has won!"

However, considering the fact that the hard drive is still unrecoverable, no matter how beautifully Howells describes it, INI indeed has no asset backing, and the future of the plan remains in question.

Cryptocurrency may win, but Howells' act of issuing coins is unlikely to.