Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)

After a long search of 12 years, British man James Howells has decided to give up on the search for a hard drive he once discarded, which contains 8000 BTC (approximately 920 million USD at a price of 115,000 USD each).

• Note from Odaily Planet Daily: Regarding the specific number of lost BTC, while early British media reported it as 7500 coins, later media reports and Howells' descriptions indicate 8000 coins, so this article will use that figure.

Accidental Loss of 8000 BTC

James Howells was born in the 1980s in Newport, Wales. Influenced by his mother, who worked in microchip production, Howells was exposed to computer technology at an early age and became a frequent internet user as a teenager, assembling computers starting at the age of 13, eventually becoming a computer engineer.

As early as the end of 2008, Howells learned about Bitcoin. On February 15, 2009, Howells began mining Bitcoin using a Dell XPS laptop—The Daily Telegraph recognized him as one of the earliest miners in the Bitcoin network, and The New Yorker pointed out that he was one of only five miners at the time.

However, Howells' mining work did not last long, as his girlfriend constantly complained about the noise and heat generated by the laptop during mining. In 2010, Howells accidentally spilled lemonade on the computer, causing it to break. He then disassembled it and removed the parts, most of which were thrown away or sold, while the hard drive containing the private key information for 8000 BTC was left in a drawer.

Between June 20 and August 10, 2013, Howells mistakenly discarded the hard drive as waste. Howells later stated that it was his ex-girlfriend Hafina Eddy-Evans who took the trash containing the hard drive to the landfill, but Eddy-Evans claimed that Howells had asked her to help dispose of the waste items, denying any wrongdoing, while Howells stated that he believed “subconsciously” that she should be responsible for it.

Howells recalled, “I wasn’t paying much attention to Bitcoin at the time because I was distracted. After that, I had a few children and started renovating my house, and I completely forgot about Bitcoin until it appeared in the news again.”

In November 2013, The Guardian reported that the hard drive was likely buried about 0.9-1.5 meters underground at the Docksway landfill in Newport, and Howells admitted in that interview that these BTC might be permanently lost.

The Newport City Council later pointed out that the hard drive could be buried under 25,000 cubic meters (approximately 110,000 to 200,000 tons) of waste. A former landfill manager confirmed that it was located in a 15,000-ton landfill area known as Cell-2 (the accumulation area from August to November 2013), with a total landfill volume of 1.4 million tons.

Rising Coin Prices, Search Obstacles

As the price of BTC continued to rise, Howells began to repeatedly attempt to search for the hard drive, but was denied by the local council for various reasons.

In December 2017, the Newport City Council rejected Howells' application to search the landfill, citing costs, environmental impact, equipment corrosion risks, and potential illegal activities related to a “gold rush.” In January 2021, Howells proposed to donate 25% of the Bitcoin (valued at 52.5 million pounds at the time) to the local 316,000 residents (175 pounds per person), but the council again rejected it on the grounds of violating licensing regulations.

A spokesperson for the Newport City Council stated in a CNN interview that local government departments had received multiple inquiries since 2013 about assisting in recovering the hard drive allegedly containing Bitcoin, and the council did not reject this proposal but was not permitted to excavate the site—“The council has repeatedly told Mr. Howells that, according to our licensing regulations, excavating the landfill is not possible, and the excavation itself would have a significant environmental impact on the surrounding area. The cost of excavating the landfill, storing, and processing waste could reach millions of pounds, and there is no guarantee that the hard drive would be found or that it would still be operational.”

However, Howells insisted that the hard drive could still function properly under the protective casing and cobalt layer of the glass platters—after all, with the value of these BTC skyrocketing, no one could easily give up such a large fortune.

To obtain the council's permission to access the landfill, Howells developed multiple detailed plans to specifically address the council's concerns. During this time, a hedge fund expressed interest in funding Howells (with both parties negotiating a 50% profit split), planning to locate the hard drive using municipal waste records and have a professional data recovery team handle it. Howells estimated the budget for this excavation work, which would take 9 to 12 months, at 5 million pounds. In August 2022, with the assistance of some venture capital funds (which would take a 30% profit share), Howells upgraded the search plan to use AI robotic arms to scan the waste, deploy drones and Boston Dynamics robotic dogs for security, and form an environmental team, with the budget increasing to 10-11 million pounds.

To gain as much community support as possible and obtain the council's search permit, Howells also proposed to use the profits to develop a community-owned mining facility at the landfill, which would utilize solar or wind energy.

On September 6, 2023, after receiving no response to his application, Howells instructed his legal team to send an open letter to the Newport City Council, stating that he would file a lawsuit. The open letter requested the city to suspend landfill construction, while seeking 446 million pounds in damages and applying for a judicial review of the council's decision to deny access to the site. Two months later, his legal team sent another letter to the council, requesting access to the site before resorting to court.

As of October 2024, the Bitcoin on the hard drive was valued at 750 million dollars. Howells ultimately sued the council for 495 million pounds in damages, but the council argued that, according to waste disposal regulations, ownership of the hard drive had reverted to the municipality.

On January 9, 2025, the judge ultimately ruled to dismiss Howells' lawsuit, stating that the case “lacked reasonable grounds” and “had no chance of success.” Howells expressed to the media that he was “extremely disappointed,” but also revealed his new plan—to issue a new cryptocurrency anchored to this unrecoverable Bitcoin.

Search Abandoned, New Path Taken

Due to the continued inability to obtain access permission from the council, Howells ultimately chose to abandon the search but opted for another potential path.

As early as May of this year, Howells disclosed on his personal X that he intended to tokenize 21% of the 8000 BTC, aiming to launch during TOKEN 2049 Singapore on October 1, planning to raise 75 million dollars… but in the following months, Howells did not mention this matter again on his personal social media channels, indicating that the plan has likely fallen through—after all, everyone knows that the BTC is highly unlikely to be recovered, and trying to raise 75 million dollars seems somewhat unseemly.

This morning, Howells revealed a new plan for the tokenization of this BTC, planning to issue 800 billion Ceiniog Coins (INI), with the goal of proposing it by the end of the year, to be built on the Bitcoin network, supported by OP_RETURN, integrated with Stacks, Runes, and Ordinals, with each INI pegged to the value of 1 Satoshi of the BTC…

Howells also released a rather passionate statement: “To all the senior and outstanding gatekeepers who have been blocking me for over a decade: You can lock the doors! You can control the courts! But you cannot stop the blockchain! Cryptocurrency has won!”

However, considering the fact that the hard drive is still unrecoverable, even if Howells describes it beautifully, the INI does not actually have any asset backing, and the future of this plan remains uncertain.

Cryptocurrency may win, but Howells' token issuance is unlikely to succeed.

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