James Howells, a computer engineer from Newport, Wales, has finally given up on retrieving the hard drive that he claims contains 8,000 Bitcoins - now worth about $890 million - after 12 years of fighting with the local council.
In 2013, his ex-girlfriend accidentally threw the hard drive into the trash. Since then, he has spent many years trying to persuade the Newport City Council to allow him to search the site, even describing the search as his "9 to 5 job."
Earlier this year, the council announced that the landfill would close in the 2025–2026 fiscal year. Howells proposed to buy the land in July, making what he called a "Multi-Million Dollar Offer," but the council never responded. Instead, they told him he still owed nearly $149,000 in legal fees from his failed court bids.
The council stated in a statement sent to BBC News that: "We will not waste more of our officials' time on this matter until payment is made."
Howells calls this "Financial Coercion," accusing the council of blocking a "legitimate offer" by tying it to an unrelated debt. "If they don’t want to sell the land, they should be clear about it," he told the BBC.
His legal battle has been long and costly. In January, the Newport Council requested the High Court to dismiss his claim for access to the landfill or a $630 million compensation request. The judge ruled that the lawsuit had no "reasonable basis." Howells appealed, represented himself, and even used AI to prepare arguments, but the Court of Appeals rejected it.
Now, he is moving on. Instead of digging through the trash, Howells plans to launch a new cryptocurrency called Ceiniog Coin (INI) by the end of this year. This coin will be backed by the value of his lost Bitcoin wallet — which can be publicly verified on the blockchain — and will act as a "store of value" token.
