Man who accidentally binned hard drive containing £700m delivers update 13 years later

The long-running saga of a man and his estimated £685million Bitcoin fortune has taken another twist.

James Howells mistakenly binned an encrypted hard drive contained the cryptographic private key for 8,000 Bitcoin in August 2013. At the time the drive’s contents were valued at £500,000 The current price of one Bitcoin stands at £85,680.17, making the drive worth today close to £700m.

On the day he made the mistake that has come to dominate his life, James asked Hafina Eddy-Evans, his girlfriend at the time, to take a few bags of rubbish to Docksway landfill, near their home in Newport, South Wales.

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He has been trying to find the hard disk ever since, and despite reports that he had recently abandoned his search, the truth is much more complicated.

"No, I have not given up," he told cryptocurrency news site The Block. "The story going around is partially true, but not in the way it’s being framed.”

If the value of Bitcoin continues to increase at its predicted rate. James could be a billionaire by 2030 – as long as he finds that hard disk. As yet, the local council hasn’t allowed him take so much as a spade to the site.

In a statement, Newport City Council officials have estimated that the missing hard drive is "buried under 25,000 cubic meters of waste and earth,” which would weigh approximately 110,000–200,000 tonnes.

The council has recently announced plans to close the site and cap it off, which would almost certainly mean the end of any hopes James might have of reaching the drive. The authority has secured planning permission for a solar farm on part of the land.

James explained that, with the value of his Bitcoin wallet still rising, he had attempted to raise money to buy the landfill site from Newport City Council.

James, who says he was “probably one of the first five people to mine Bitcoin,” has made a multi-million-pound offer to the council. He says he’s planning to crowdfund the purchase by launching a secondary “Ordinals-based token.” As yet, James hasn’t heard back from council officials.

“Here’s where we stand,” he explained. “If they won’t sell, there’s no need for a token sale to buy the landfill. I am no longer pursuing the purchase of the landfill, I am no longer pursuing excavation or remediation, I am no longer pursuing dialogue with the council or its representatives."

He has promised that, if the council were willing to work with him, he would donate 10% of the recovered haul to be spent on local good causes and educational projects. That could be worth about $140million (£105m) by the end of 2025.

James explained how he came to make his costly mistake. ”I had a clearout of my old IT equipment,” he said. “I hadn't used this drive for over three years, I believed I'd taken everything off it... so it got thrown in the bin."

His former partner Hafina has confirmed that she actually took the bag of old electronics to landfill. "Yes, I threw away his rubbish, he asked me to,” she said.

“The computer part had been disposed of in a black sack along with other unwanted belongings and he begged me to take it away. I had no idea what was in it but I reluctantly dropped it off at the local tip on the way home from going on the school run.”

She has since said that James had "begged" her to take the unwanted items to the tip, and it’s not her fault that he lost the Bitcoin wallet, while James has admitted that he "subconsciously" blames her for the loss of his vast fortune.

A spokesperson for Newport City Council told The Daily Mirror: "Newport City Council was contacted last month by James Howells about the possibility of him purchasing land from us.

Mr Howells currently owes the council just short of £117,000 in legal costs, costs which we occurred defending his claim for £500m submitted last year, which was dismissed by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

The council has a duty to the taxpayer to recover this money.

We also have a duty to ensure that council resources are used efficiently, and that officers time is not taken up unnecessarily.

As such, the council has responded to Mr Howells’ correspondence, reiterating that he is required to pay us these costs, and that we will not be spending any more of our officers’ time on this issue until that payment is made."