In 2013, James Howells, an IT worker living in the UK, sold his laptop on eBay but kept the hard drive that had mined bitcoins.
But while cleaning the house, he accidentally dumped the hard drive, which contained about 7,500 bitcoins, into a landfill in Newport, South Wales. The hard drive contained about 7,500 bitcoins, which have soared to about $615 million in 2018.
Then he wanted to retrieve the hard drive from the landfill, but there were already 350,000 tons of garbage in it. He went to City Hall and proposed to donate 25% of his wealth, about 1,400 bitcoins, to the city government for the new crown anti-epidemic fund. In exchange, Howells asked the city government to help find the hard drive he had thrown away many years ago in the landfill. But the city council rejected his request to search the garbage dump, saying it was illegal and dangerous.
He even took the city government to court for this, but was ultimately unable to recover the hard drive.
