Man who lost $800 million bitcoin in landfill wants to buy the garbage dump

[Spartan]

Buried deep in a Welsh landfill, beneath layers of years-old garbage, there is a hard drive that holds the key to almost $800 million in bitcoin – or so James Howells believes, after accidentally throwing the drive away in 2013.

And now, after years of battling the local authority in court to retrieve the hard drive, Howells has come up with a new plan: to simply buy the landfill.

“Am considering purchasing a landfill site. Funding secured,” he wrote Thursday on X, echoing comments by him that were widely reported in the UK media on Monday, though he didn’t say who was providing the funding.

CNN has reached out to Howells for comment.

Howells has tried almost everything to access the Docksway Landfill in Newport, a city 12 miles (19 kilometers) northeast of the Welsh capital, Cardiff, including offering Newport City Council more than $70 million in 2021 for permission to dig up the site.

An aerial view of the Docksway Landfill site in Newport, Wales

His latest plan comes after a British High Court judge stopped his case from going to trial, issuing a judgment in January that dismissed his attempts to force the council to allow him to search the landfill.

Howells accidentally threw out that crucial hard drive in August 2013 when he was clearing out his house, thinking it was a blank drive that contained no data. He put it in a trash bag that he left in the hallway for his then-partner to take to the garbage dump, before he realised, as the value of the bitcoin rose, that he had disposed of the wrong one.

Since then, the value of the bitcoin Howells says is loaded onto the hard drive has skyrocketed from around $9 million to almost $800 million, as prices of cryptocurrency have soared in recent years.

 

 

Every bitcoin transaction requires a private key, a secret piece of data contained within each individual bitcoin wallet that mathematically proves the transaction has come from that wallet.

Howells’ hard drive contains “a record” of that private key, Judge Andrew Keyser wrote in his judgement issued in January.

“The position is no different in principle from what it would be if the record of the private key had been written on a piece of paper that had been put into the landfill,” Keyser added.

Without knowing the private key, Howells can’t access the bitcoin he mined all those years ago, when the cryptocurrency was little known beyond the tech world.

Newport City Council, which plans to close the landfill site sometime in the 2025/26 financial year, according to local media, has not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment. It told CNN in 2021 that it is not permitted to excavate the site.

“The council has told Mr Howells on a number of occasions that excavation is not possible under our licencing permit and excavation itself would have a huge environmental impact on the surrounding area,” a spokeswoman said at the time.

“The cost of digging up the landfill, storing and treating the waste could run into millions of pounds – without any guarantee of either finding it or it still being in working order.”

[kakatiya]

I purchased few bitcoins like 100 for fun in 2010.. i stepped on that harddrive and damged it..they were not thay valuabke when it happend in 2011..i even not bothered to think about them until 2015 when i came to know their price went up to 14,000$ each..but didnt bother to think about it .. no point..they are gone..

I will tell this guy the same ..forget about them

[quickgun_murugun]

6 minutes ago, kakatiya said:

I purchased few bitcoins like 100 for fun in 2010.. i stepped on that harddrive and damged it..they were not thay valuabke when it happend in 2011..i even not bothered to think about them until 2015 when i came to know their price went up to 14,000$ each..but didnt bother to think about it .. no point..they are gone..

I will tell this guy the same ..forget about them

Nuvvu super kaka

[Gorantlamdhav]

19 minutes ago, kakatiya said:

I purchased few bitcoins like 100 for fun in 2010.. i stepped on that harddrive and damged it..they were not thay valuabke when it happend in 2011..i even not bothered to think about them until 2015 when i came to know their price went up to 14,000$ each..but didnt bother to think about it .. no point..they are gone..

I will tell this guy the same ..forget about them

“daridruda noti kaada koodu nela paalu chesinav kada ra” ani tittaga vinna

ippudu adi nijame ani chustunna

but you are happy that’s important 

[MACH]

39 minutes ago, kakatiya said:

I purchased few bitcoins like 100 for fun in 2010.. i stepped on that harddrive and damged it..they were not thay valuabke when it happend in 2011..i even not bothered to think about them until 2015 when i came to know their price went up to 14,000$ each..but didnt bother to think about it .. no point..they are gone..

I will tell this guy the same ..forget about them

9.7 Million in today's value

[kakatiya]

56 minutes ago, MACH said:

9.7 Million in today's value

It doesnt matter.. they are never meant for me..

Also bit currency and bit mining i used to learn it as more of technology and part of security and payment card industry..so for technology konni purchase chesa..to setup a payment transaction lab..

to understand how crypto currency works ani..it was never meant for investment ..just for learning a technology 

[Konebhar6]

5 minutes ago, kakatiya said:

It doesnt matter.. they are never meant for me..

Also bit currency and bit mining i used to learn it as more of technology and part of security and payment card industry..so for technology konni purchase chesa..to setup a payment transaction lab..

to understand how crypto currency works ani..it was never meant for investment ..just for learning a technology 

Good way to look at it. 

Even if you did not lose it, you would have sold it, most probably when it hit $100 or below or $500 at max. You would have never kept it this long. 

[Rendu]

4 hours ago, kakatiya said:

I purchased few bitcoins like 100 for fun in 2010.. i stepped on that harddrive and damged it..they were not thay valuabke when it happend in 2011..i even not bothered to think about them until 2015 when i came to know their price went up to 14,000$ each..but didnt bother to think about it .. no point..they are gone..

I will tell this guy the same ..forget about them

Salute to your heart .....

[kakatiya]

17 hours ago, Konebhar6 said:

Good way to look at it. 

Even if you did not lose it, you would have sold it, most probably when it hit $100 or below or $500 at max. You would have never kept it this long. 

No ..i would have kept it..just like doge ..i dont usually sell

[yemdoing]

I mined bitoin in my aapice computer, in 2012 anukunta, chala rojulu mine chesina kuda bokkalodi $2 kuda avvaledu .so I forgot about it. And project ayepoyaka aapice vaalu reformat chesesaru.