12-Year Hunt Over: James Howells Abandons Quest for $950M Bitcoin Hard Drive Holding 8,000 BTC

A crypto saga ends—not with a recovery, but a surrender. James Howells, the IT engineer who famously tossed a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC in 2013, just called off his decade-long treasure hunt. The prize? A cool $950 million at today’s prices.

Buried in a landfill, corroded by time—and bureaucracy. Howells’ pleas to excavate the Newport dump site were repeatedly blocked by local authorities. ‘Too risky,’ they claimed. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s value did what it does best: defied logic and left HODLers either rich or wrecked.

Finance take: Another reminder that ‘secure storage’ beats ‘accidental landfill’ in every wealth management playbook.

— bitcoin Archive (@BTC_Archive) August 3, 2025

The landfill is estimated to be 15 meters DEEP with 200,000 tons of waste, making recovery highly impractical. A $620 million damages lawsuit filed by Howells in late 2024 was dismissed in January 2025.

Despite offering 30% of the recovered funds to the city and residents, logistical challenges and regulatory barriers brought the search to a close—highlighting the irreversible nature of early Bitcoin losses and the difficulties in recovering crypto wallets for digital assets.

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