Denied permission to excavate a landfill in search of his missing Bitcoin, Newport, Wales resident James Howells has a new plan: buy the soon-to-be-capped dumping site outright from the city council.
Howells inadvertently discarded a hard drive in 2013 containing what he claimed was 7,500 Bitcoins (though some reports suggest it may have been 8,000), and has spent the past 12 years trying to convince Newport City Council to grant him access to the landfill to search for the lost device.
He claimed that, if given permission to dig, he’d share 10 percent of the Bitcoin’s value with the Council and argued that, had they cooperated in 2013, Newport could have become “the next Dubai.” Assuming, of course, the hard drive still works.
So far, no luck. Howells’ latest setback came early last month when a UK court dismissed his lawsuit against the Council. The judge ruled that the claim had no reasonable grounds and no realistic prospect of success at trial, effectively putting an end to the case.
In the intervening time, the Newport City Council has presented its budget proposal for 2025 and 2026, which includes plans to close and cap the dumping site where Howells believes his Bitcoin-stuffed hard drive is buried, effectively putting it permanently out of reach. His 7,500 Bitcoins are worth about £586 million ($728M) as of writing.
Howells expressed surprise that the Council planned to close the landfill, which has been used for commercial waste since 2015 as the facility has neared capacity, telling the BBC that he “would be potentially interested in purchasing” it so his excavation could commence.
“I have discussed this option recently with investment partners and it is very much on the table,” Howells told the British broadcaster. He also said on X that he had filed an appeal on the court’s dismissal of his case.
The Council confirmed plans to close and cap the landfill to The Register, but declined to comment further on the matter.
There’s no way the drive is still intact, right?
The landfill has a total capacity of approximately 1.4 million metric tons (tonnes) of waste, BBC reported. However, Howells claims he has pinpointed the hard drive’s location to a specific area, estimated to contain about 100,000 tonnes of waste.
According to the garbage experts at Business Waste UK, even if the drive was intact, it’s nigh impossible it’ll ever be found.
Considering all the factors, it’s highly unlikely he’ll ever be able to find his hard drive in a landfill
“Around 13.1 million tonnes of waste go to UK landfills each year,” the biz told The Register in an emailed statement. “With 540 sites across the country, this averages 57,592 tonnes per landfill. Assuming a hard drive weighs 700g – that’s the equivalent weight of over 82 million hard drives, in just one year. It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Beyond that, continual waste compaction, heat from decomposing organic matter, methane and other landfill gasses, and toxic leachate seeping through the waste all combine to create a hostile environment for electronics.
“It’s easy to see why Mr. Howells is so consumed by the desire to find his missing hard drive,” Business Waste UK waste management expert Mark Hall said. “However, considering all the factors, it’s highly unlikely he’ll ever be able to find his hard drive in a landfill.”
“Mr Howells may be better off spending his time and energy elsewhere, the ongoing legal battle will no doubt be costly,” Hall added. He could have spent some of that energy buying Bitcoin in 2013, for example: Hall noted that Bitcoin was trading for as little as $100 early that year; Now the flagship crypto coin is hovering around the $100,000 mark.
“Had Mr Howells simply bought more Bitcoin when he realized the original hard drive was lost,” Hall opined, “he could still be sitting on a fortune.” ®
