Bitcoin buried in Newport landfill

In 2013, James Howells mistakenly disposed of a laptop hard drive containing the private key for 8,000 Bitcoin in the Docksway landfill in Newport, Wales. Howells subsequently assembled a team of specialists and secured funding to excavate the site, but Newport City Council refused permission, citing the cost and environmental impact of the search. If the coins are discovered, Howells proposes distributing 30% of the proceedings among the council and the population of Newport.
As of February 2025, the missing Bitcoin was worth £597 million (US$751 million). In December 2024, Howells sued the council for £495 million, with the council contesting that the device is now its property. The attempted recovery of the missing Bitcoin has been likened to a digital treasure hunt. Howells and his team are confident that retrieval of the data remains possible, while the council continues to profess its scepticism. Following a hearing, the High Court dismissed Howells' claim in January 2025, ruling that it had no prospect of success.
Bitcoin, the first decentralized cryptocurrency, was announced in October 2008 with the whitepaper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System by Satoshi Nakamoto, followed by the implementation of the protocol as a peer-to-peer network in January 2009. It is a significant digital currency that uses cryptography to verify blockchain transactions and record them in a public ledger.
James Howells, a Welsh computer engineer from Newport, was influenced at a young age by his mother, who was involved in the production of microchips. By his teens, he was a regular user of the internet. Howells began building computers at the age of 13 and became a Napster user around the time of Bitcoin's inception. Working various IT jobs, he learnt about encryption while working on a Bowman communications system. Howells taught himself about Bitcoin in December 2008 and began studying the concept a month later. After the 2008 bank bailout, Howells considered fiat currencies a "scam", favouring the vision of Bitcoin inventor Nakamoto instead. He became an early adopter of the technology in 2009. By 2013, Howells was living in Newport with his three children and then-partner Hafina Eddy-Evans. The two later broke up, with Eddy-Evans leaving with the children. In 2021, Howells worked from home maintaining emergency-response systems in Wales. A year later, he described himself as a cryptocurrency and blockchain project manager.
On 15 February 2009, James Howells started mining Bitcoin with a Dell XPS laptop. He recalled mining 400–800 Bitcoin intermittently overnight for two months, which caused his device to overheat. Howells later damaged the device and dismantled it for parts, selling some on eBay. The laptop, containing 32 kilobytes worth of Bitcoin private keys, was also used for gaming, and held music, e-mails and family photographs. The Telegraph considers Howells one of the earliest miners on the Bitcoin network, with The New Yorker further identifying him as one of only five miners at the time of his participation.
Between 20 June and 10 August 2013, Howells accidentally disposed of an encrypted hard drive, mistaking one device for another. The disposed hard drive contained the cryptographic private key for 8,000 Bitcoin valued at £500,000 at the time. According to reports, Hafina Eddy-Evans, Howells's partner at the time, took the rubbish with the hard drive to the tip (landfill). According to Eddy-Evans, Howells "begged" her to take the unwanted items to the tip. She denies fault, while Howells said he "subconsciously blames" her for the loss of the hard drive.
By November 2013, the device was approximately three to five feet underground in Docksway landfill, Newport, South Wales, with an approximate value of £4 million. At the time, Howells accepted that the coins were lost for good. Newport City Council notes that the hard drive was likely "buried under 25,000 cubic meters of waste and earth", weighing approximately 110,000–200,000 tonnes, with CNN saying that finding the device would be "almost impossible". The former manager of the landfill site says the hard drive is located in a 15,000 tonne section named Cell 2, where waste was buried between August and November 2013. The site holds 1.4 million tonnes of waste in total.
In December 2017, Wired reported that the Newport City Council refused to allow Howells to search for the hard drive. According to Howells, the proposed search involves the first case, unrelated to a criminal investigation, of excavating a landfill site in the United Kingdom. The council cited cost concerns, environmental impact, galvanic corrosion of the device, and the potential of "treasure hunters" breaking the law. Initially the council took a soft approach to the situation, indicating that they would return the device if found, but later took a tougher stance, and stated that searching for the hard drive would be against the law.
In January 2021, after repeatedly requesting access to search for the device, Howells offered the council 25% of the proceedings then valued at approximately £200 million. He offered to donate £52.5 million (US$71.7 million) to the council which would go to the 316,000 people of Newport, equivalent to £175 per person. The council refused, claiming Howells's offer was in breach of licensing regulations. Howells believes the drive is still functional due to its protective casing and the anti-corrosive cobalt layer coating the glass disk.
To support his search efforts, Howells acquired financial support from a hedge fund with whom he would split 50% of the proceedings. He believes that using council waste records they can identify the location of the device. After they identify and find the hard drive, a team of data recovery specialists would help recover the Bitcoin. The council estimates that the excavation would cost millions of pounds, with Howells budgeting £5 million for a 9–12 month operation.
In August 2022, Howells expanded his search plan to include the use of artificial intelligence using a mechanical arm to scan waste to identify the hard drive; the plan also called for using drones, and Boston Dynamics robotic dogs for security, as well as recruiting an AI specialist and an environmental team to the project. His team includes eight experts in landfill excavation, and a data recovery advisor who helped recover the black box from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. The budget also increased to £10–11 million with the help of venture capitalists who would retain 30% of the proceedings along with Howells.
Additionally, Howells now intended to develop a community-owned mining facility on the landfill site with the proceedings. The facility would use solar or wind power. That same year, Richard Hammond produced a short documentary on Howells's quest to retrieve the drive involving the recovery team, and by September 2023, the team doubled in size.
Howells's legal team published an open letter to the Newport City Council on 6 September 2023 with his intention to sue. The letter sought to prevent future works on the site while seeking £446 million in damages and a judicial review of the council's decision refusing access to the site. Two months later, his legal team wrote again to the council requesting access prior to pursuing a case in court.
By October 2024, the contents of the hard drive were estimated at $750 million. Howells sued the council for £495 million, setting a date for a commerce court in Cardiff in December 2024, arguing for intellectual property rights among other claims. According to Wales Online, Howells was represented by the same team of barristers that also represented some of the alleged victims against Mohamed Al-Fayed. In response, the council argued that they legally own the device as the property was deposited to the site; Howells's barristers denied such claim based on intent.
The council requested a High Court hearing on 3 December with the intent to have the case dismissed. The Judge postponed the verdict until a later date. Council barristers argued Howells attempted to "bribe the council" by offering a percentage of the Bitcoin to the local community. Howells's legal team contested, arguing that their client was entitled to search for his missing hard drive.
In a judgement issued on 9 January 2025, Judge Keyser (KC) dismissed Howells' claim, saying that it had "no realistic prospect of succeeding". Howells told WalesOnline he was "very disappointed" but that he had a new plan to start a cryptocurrency based on his inaccessible Bitcoin wealth.
Howells believed that the chances of retrieving the device increased as the value increased. In 2022, he estimated that there was an "80–90 per cent chance" that the Bitcoin could be recovered if the hard drive was found and the platter was still intact. At the same time, he acknowledged that the device was "a needle in a haystack" and that the investment from venture capitalists was extremely high-risk.
In 2024, Howells' legal team stated in court that the metaphorical haystack was theoretically "much, much smaller", due to the "considerable expertise" involved in planning an excavation. Attempts to recover the device have been described as a digital treasure hunt.
One UK waste management expert claimed in 2025 that Howells' chances of finding the hard drive were like looking for a needle in a haystack.
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