"My life is buried in this pile of mud! If I can't find it digging three feet down, I'll die here!"
— When James Howells roared at the mountain of garbage, no one believed he was holding billions in lottery winnings.
On August 5, 2025, the stinking landfill exploded with a deafening sound!
The British man known by his neighbors as 'Crazy James' crawled out of a 17-meter deep garbage heap covered in black mud, clutching a broken hard drive that had split into three pieces — it locked away 8,000 Bitcoins, worth enough to buy 30 private jets, valued at $950 million!
■ 12 years worse than bankruptcy: from a respectable IT guy to a landfill madman.
On that rainy night in 2013, he carelessly threw away a hard drive while cleaning out old items. The next day, when he woke up and checked the news, the price of Bitcoin soared like a rocket — the 8,000 Bitcoins in that hard drive transformed overnight from 'digital trash' to 'mobile vault'!
He knelt by the trash can, crying until he gagged, and madly rushed into the largest landfill in the area, only to be pressed into the mud by the police: 'This is government land; dare to dig and you'll go to jail!'
In the next 12 years, he became a laughingstock across the internet:
- His wife scolded him for 'destroying the family over a string of numbers' and moved away with the children.
- He mortgaged his house to the ground, using the money to hire geological experts, marking the map with crooked Xs.
- A netizen mocked with a meme: 'I suggest burying him in the landfill, to keep company with Bitcoin.'
- At his most desperate moment, he took antidepressants while staring at a mountain of garbage, with a suicide note written in his pocket.
■ Fight until the last second: trading life for the court's 'last 30 days'.
Everyone thought he would collapse, until the spring of 2025, when he threw out two cards:
✅ The trash truck driver from back then suddenly appeared, trembling as he pointed out, 'The garbage that day was unloaded in Zone C, Slot 3.'
✅ Environmental experts presented a 'nano-level dust-free excavation plan' — promising that the dug-up areas would be cleaner than a park.
At the moment the judge made the ruling, he collapsed in court: '30 days, if I can't dig it up, I'll leave, no entanglements!'
For 30 days, he and his team lived in a container by the landfill, with the AI scanner buzzing 24 hours a day. On the 28th day, the detector suddenly screamed — 17 meters deep in the humus layer, the metal detector was going crazy!
The hard drive dug out looked like a lump of mud: the shell was corroded with pits from strong acid, with black-green grime at the interface that crumbled at a light touch. The engineer rushed into the lab holding it, staying awake for 72 hours, with sparks from the soldering gun splattering all over his protective suit — when the computer screen flashed 'Data read successfully', the whole team cried until they were oxygen-deprived!
■ Now it's the world's turn to go crazy:
Netizens dug up an interview from 12 years ago, where he, with red eyes, said, 'I know this sounds like a joke, but I have to try', and the comments section exploded:
"Those who laughed at him back then now have faces more cracked than the hard drive."
"Is this about digging for Bitcoin? It's about burying the words 'never give up' in the landfill."
And James stood at the press conference, holding that crumpled suicide note, smiling as he announced:
"First, buy a house for the landfill manager who kicked me out — thank him for not treating me like trash."
"The remaining money, half goes to environmental protection, and half... to help everyone who has lost a hard drive build a 'digital lost and found'."
The last question:
Is the old hard drive in the farthest corner of your drawer also waiting for you to dig it out? $BTC