James Howells has given up on his lost flash drive conterning $900M BTC ![](https://images.ecency.com/DQmYJicjbaKmKgXEBDar394chZjPrKxSF9ngo4fadbRB5qv/1754340238306.jpg)

In a tale that’s equal parts tragic and absurd, James Howells, a Welsh IT engineer, has officially thrown in the towel on his 12-year quest to recover a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin, now worth a jaw-dropping $915 million. Back in 2013, Howells accidentally tossed the drive into a Newport, Wales landfill during a fateful cleanup, mistaking it for a blank one. His ex-partner, Halfina Eddy-Evans, took the trash to the dump, unknowingly sending a digital fortune to rot under 25,000 cubic meters of garbage. Ouch. Howells, once among Bitcoin’s top five miners, fought tooth and nail to excavate the Docksway landfill. He assembled a crack team of experts, including NASA recovery pros, and offered the Newport City Council a hefty 10-30% cut of the loot potentially hundreds of millions for permission to dig. But the council, citing environmental concerns and a pesky licensing permit, repeatedly said, “No dice.” A 2024 lawsuit for £495 million crashed and burned when a High Court judge ruled the drive belonged to the council, leaving Howells’ dreams buried deeper than his hard drive. Now, he’s accepted defeat, joining the ranks of crypto’s lost fortunes 2.3 to 3.7 million BTC gone forever. The silver lining? A documentary,

The Buried Bitcoin

is in the works to immortalize his epic misadventure. Moral of the story: always double-check your trash.

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