Despite the speed at which cryptocurrency fortunes have arisen and the significant infrastructure surrounding digital assets, cryptocurrency is still in some respects relatively new and a lot of lessons have had to be learned very quickly.
One of these lessons was the result of possibly the first-ever inadvertent treasure hunt in crypto history, one that appears to have come to a tragic end.
People have become more aware of how to protect their valuable wallets when using crypto, converting it or trading it on an exchange.
However some lessons have been learned the hard way and in rather unusual places, such as a multi-million pound Bitcoin fortune ending up buried in a Welsh landfill.
James Howell’s Lost Fortune
Newport-based computer engineer James Howells was an early adopter of Bitcoin, sharing the criticisms of early evangelists and the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto.
Early adopters who kept hold of their early supply of Bitcoin would end up making significant fortunes; a pizza bought in 2010 when 10,000 BTC was worth around $42 would be worth over a billion dollars today with Bitcoin’s six-figure valuations.
Mr Howell’s fortune was closer to 8000 Bitcoin, back when he was one of the first five miners of the currency according to reporting by The New Yorker, but this would still be worth over $830m if it still existed and if he could still get access to it.
One Fateful Trip To The Tip
As a computer engineer, Mr Howells had a number of spare hard drives that looked largely identical to each other and wanted to make space in one of his parts drawers.
He decided to toss out what he thought was an old, broken hard drive alongside several other components, allegedly begging his then-partner Hafina Eddy-Evans to take it to the time.
She did at some time between June and August 2013, back when the hardware wallet would have been worth about £4m, and at that point, James accepted that he was unlikely to get it back and to just learn the lessons about protecting both data and the hardware it is kept on.
However, with it now worth 200 times that, and valued at higher than the GDP of some countries, suddenly it was not quite as easy to ignore.
In the same New Yorker article, Mr Howells claimed that he “subconsciously blames” his then-partner Hafina for losing his fortune, although she categorically denies any responsibility.
He did not lose hope, however. All he had to do was search the landfill and get it back.
The Illegal Treasure Hunt?
The chances of finding the hard drive are extraordinarily unlikely, potentially on the cusp of impossibility.
Whilst the section of the landfill the hard drive was buried in is known, that section is still 15,000 tonnes in size, and if the hard drive was not simply crushed under the mass, the corrosion of all that non-recyclable waste means that it is unlikely that the hard drive has survived, even if it could be found.
Beyond that, according to the Control of Pollution Act 1974, which deals with waste management, section 14, paragraph (6) subsection (c) states that anything delivered to a landfill in the course of using it will belong to the authority that owns the landfill.
This means that, even if the hard drive could theoretically be reclaimed, and the chances of that are as close to zero as makes no difference, it would legally belong to Newport City Council.
Initially, the Council suggested that they would return the device if they happened to find it, but refused to allow him to excavate the site, citing environmental reasons, issues with the cost if the hard drive was not found or the key could not be recovered, and the implications that this could allow “treasure hunters” to search through landfills.
The sheer value of the Bitcoin and therefore the theoretical reward for finding it, however, meant that Mr Howells could not be denied.
He made constant requests for the Council to change their mind, suggesting increasingly elaborate plans to use a large AI-driven mechanical arm and a specialist team at a cost of over £10m and an expected timescale of up to a year.
The Final Lawsuit
The final gambit was a lawsuit against the Council in 2023 seeking £446m in damage (roughly the amount the Bitcoin was worth at the time), later increasing the damage claim to £495m.
The claim was dismissed in January 2025, but his final gambit was to attempt to buy the landfill outright, a proposal that also seems unlikely to work.
Regardless, he taught a valuable lesson at the largest possible scale about protecting your valuable digital assets, and will at least make some money on the rights to his story.