A desperate crypto millionaire’s fortune lies buried under mountains of garbage in Wales, and time is running out to retrieve it. James Howells mined 8,000 Bitcoin back in 2009, only to accidentally toss the hard drive containing his digital wealth into a Newport landfill in 2013. Now worth an estimated $780 million, his buried treasure might stay there forever.
For nearly a decade, Howells has been fighting an uphill battle against the Newport City Council to dig up his lost fortune. The search area contains an overwhelming 1.4 million tonnes of waste to sift through. Talk about a costly mistake. His latest setback came in January 2025 when the High Court dismissed his case, finding “no reasonable grounds” for his claim. Because apparently, the right to dig through mountains of rotting trash isn’t constitutionally protected. With lost bitcoins permanently frozen in inaccessible digital wallets, Howells’ case represents just one example of the cryptocurrency’s vanishing supply.
The situation just got worse. Newport landfill is scheduled to close in 2025-26, with plans to cap the site and transform it into a solar farm. The irony isn’t lost here – from digital gold to green energy, all while Howells’ Bitcoin remains trapped beneath the surface. The closure announcement caught him off guard, dramatically shortening his window for recovery. The council secured planning permission in August 2024 for the ambitious solar project.
Howells isn’t giving up without a fight. He’s now proposing to buy the entire landfill site “as is” with help from investment partners. His previous recovery plan came with a $13 million price tag and would take 36 months to execute. But with environmental risks and astronomical costs involved, his chances look slim.
The stakes keep getting higher. Howells believes his buried Bitcoin could be worth over $1.2 billion by 2026. But unless something changes dramatically, those digital coins might spend eternity powering nothing but methane emissions under a field of solar panels.
It’s a modern-day treasure story with a twist – instead of X marking the spot, it’s somewhere under pile after pile of yesterday’s trash. And this time, the treasure might stay buried forever.
