James Howells has described his lost legal bid to recover the fortune as ‘gut-wrenching’ (Image: Lee Howells / SWNS)
The long-running saga of a man and his estimated £685million Bitcoin fortune has taken another twist. James Howells mistakenly binned an encrypted hard drive contained the cryptographic private key for 8,000 Bitcoin in August 2013.
At the time, the drive’s contents were valued at £500,000. The current price of one Bitcoin stands at £85,680.17, making the drive worth close to £700m today.
On the day, he made the mistake that has blighted his life, James asked Hafina Eddy-Evans, his partner at the time, to take several bags of refuse to Docksway landfill, near their home in Newport, South Wales.
He has been attempting to locate the hard disk ever since, and despite reports that he had recently given up his quest, the reality is far more complex.
“No, I have not given up,” he told cryptocurrency news site The Block. “The story going around is partially true, but not in the way it’s being framed.”
READ MORE: Man who threw £600m Bitcoin fortune out by mistake loses huge battle
READ MORE: Furious Brit sues council after throwing his ‘£569m fortune’ in the bin
The hard drive is thought to have been taken to Newport’s landfill site on Docks Way A man who binned a hard drive containing Bitcoin now worth £230m has offered to share his wealth with people in a Welsh city if he is allowed to search a landfill site.James Howells, an IT worker and early adopter of Bitcoin from Newport, claims he unintentionally dumped 7,500 units of the cryptocurrency in mid-2013.At the time, the value of the coins could be counted in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, but has since skyrocketed to more than £200m.The 35-year-old has spent the last eight years asking Newport City Council for permission to search its landfill site for the missing hard drive, and has made several offers to share a portion of the money, if found, with the local authority. (Image: MEDIA WALES)
If the value of Bitcoin continues to rise at its forecast rate, James could be a billionaire by 2030 – provided he discovers that hard disk.
As yet, the local council hasn’t permitted him take so much as a spade to the site. In a statement, Newport City Council officials have calculated that the missing hard drive is “buried under 25,000 cubic meters of waste and earth,” which would weigh approximately 110,000–200,000 tonnes.
The council has recently unveiled plans to shut down the site and seal it off, a move that would likely dash any hopes James might have of accessing the drive.
The authority has obtained planning permission to establish a solar farm on a portion of the land. James revealed that as the value of his Bitcoin wallet continues to soar, he has tried to raise funds to purchase the landfill site from Newport City Council.
The hard drive contains the key to Bitcoin worth millions (Image: BlackJack3D via Getty Images)
James, who claims he was “probably one of the first five people to mine Bitcoin,” has tabled a multi-million-pound bid to the council. He intends to crowdfund the acquisition by launching a secondary “Ordinals-based token.”
However, James is yet to receive a response from council officials. “Here’s where we stand,” he clarified. “If they won’t sell, there’s no need for a token sale to buy the landfill. I am no longer pursuing the purchase of the landfill, I am no longer pursuing excavation or remediation, I am no longer pursuing dialogue with the council or its representatives.”
He has pledged that if the council were open to collaboration, he would donate 10% of the recovered treasure to be used on local charitable causes and educational projects. This could amount to approximately $140million (£105m) by the end of 2025.
James detailed how he ended up making this expensive error. “I had a clearout of my old IT equipment,” he shared.
Bitcoin (Image: Getty)
“I hadn’t used this drive for over three years, I believed I’d taken everything off it… so it got thrown in the bin.”
His ex-partner Hafina has confirmed that she indeed took the bag of old electronics to the rubbish dump. “Yes, I threw away his rubbish, he asked me to,” she stated.
“The computer part had been disposed of in a black sack along with other unwanted belongings and he begged me to take it away. I had no idea what was in it but I reluctantly dropped it off at the local tip on the way home from doing the school run.”
She has since said that James had “begged” her to take the unwanted items to the tip, and it’s not her fault that he lost the Bitcoin wallet, while James has confessed that he “subconsciously” blames her for the loss of his vast fortune.
A spokesperson for Newport City Council told The Daily Mirror: “Newport City Council was contacted last month by James Howells about the possibility of him purchasing land from us.
“Mr Howells currently owes the council just short of £117,000 in legal costs, costs which we occurred defending his claim for £500m submitted last year, which was dismissed by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The council has a duty to the taxpayer to recover this money.
“We also have a duty to ensure that council resources are used efficiently, and that officers time is not taken up unnecessarily.
“As such, the council has responded to Mr Howells’ correspondence, reiterating that he is required to pay us these costs, and that we will not be spending any more of our officers’ time on this issue until that payment is made.”