The post Man ‘Extremely Serious’ About Buying Landfill Where His $774 Million Bitcoin Is Lost appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

James Howells lost a hard drive containing the keys to 8,000 Bitcoin in 2013, which is currently valued at approximately $774 million. Now 12 years later, the computer engineer is looking to purchase the dump he believes the hard drive to be buried in, since the site is shutting down. The local council of Newport, Wales is expected to close the landfill site on Docks Way in the 2025-26 financial year, according to the council’s draft budget, as the dump is nearly at capacity. With this closure, a solar farm is expected to be built on the land in order to power bin collection trucks. Hearing this news, Howells told Decrypt he is “extremely serious” about purchasing the site. “My recovery team is still in place, my business partners are still in place, and we would be ready to go tomorrow morning if Newport City Council were willing to discuss and negotiate with us,” he explained. Howells explained to Decrypt that he has a 5-year plan that involves the purchasing, operating, and excavation of the landfill site. He says he has accurate estimations of how much the entire process would cost—but isn’t willing to state this publicly at this point. An employee from a homeware store that neighbours the dump told Decrypt that the area stinks all year round anyway, so they aren’t concerned about Howells coming searching the site for his Bitcoin. In fact, they wished him “good luck” as it’ll cost the Newport resident a lot of time and money. Newport City Council told Decrypt that it is making no further comment. “If we are willing to search every single piece of hay, eventually we will find the needle,” he said. “The AI object detection systems we intend to use, coupled with manual human sorting mechanisms that are…

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Filed under: News - @ February 12, 2025 7:20 pm