Investor lost bitcoins in landfill – what about them?

Judge Andrew Keiser has rejected an attempt by early cryptocurrency investor James Howells to sue Newport City Council, the BBC reports. He wanted to do so in an attempt to recover a hard drive that contains files for accessing digital assets from a local landfill. As of today, the 7,500 BTC are valued at $711.5 million, meaning the amount is clearly worth the effort.

Howells claims that over a decade ago, his former partner mistakenly threw away a storage medium that included a file to access a cryptocurrency wallet. Over the past few years, the early investor has been trying to gain access to a Newport landfill to locate the device in question and attempt to recover the information on it.


Earlier for this purpose, James also turned to experts from Ontrack, who expected to recover at least 90 per cent of the information on the drive. This would have been enough to gain access to the cryptocurrency wallet, as the missing part of the private key could have been found by brute force.
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Crypto investor James Howells, who is looking for a hard drive containing the keys to 7,500 bitcoins

Despite the prospect of making money, the local authorities were stubbornly unwilling to grant Howells access to the dump, citing the obvious environmental implications. He was also not helped by an offer to donate 10 per cent of the recovered bitcoins to the local community to compensate for the damage caused.

After unsuccessful attempts, Howells sued the authorities in Newport. Through the proceedings, the early crypto investor wanted to either gain access to the dump for prospecting or seek £495 million in compensation.

However, the judge did not favour the idea. As Andrew Keiser noted in his ruling, the claimant had no “reasonable grounds” for bringing the claim and “no realistic chance” of success in a full trial. Accordingly, Howells will not get even an attempt to get what he wants.


We note that the judge's decision seems logical. Still, the only facts in this case are Howells' claim that he once mined a huge amount of coins and lost access to them due to the loss of his hard drive. Even if the story is real, the likelihood of successfully finding the device is extremely low - as are the chances of recovering data from a hard drive that has been exposed to various temperatures, humidity and other such factors for over eleven years.


How lost BTC bitcoins are searched for

James Howells reacted to what is happening and said that he is very upset with this decision. Here is his comment.

The lawsuit was dismissed at the very first hearing, meaning I didn’t even have a chance to explain myself or get justice in any form. There was a lot more to explain in full court – and that’s what I expected.

I have tried to dialogue with the Newport City Council in every way possible for the last twelve years. And now I’m being told I’m too late. It’s like a punch in the gut.

Crypto investor James Howells, who actively mined bitcoins in 2009 and lost the coins

The crypto investor also recalled that he was willing to donate ten per cent of the proceeds if the finder was successful.

It’s not a matter of greed, I would love to share the profits, but no one in authority wants to talk to me properly. This decision has taken everything away from me and left me with nothing. The great British system of injustice has once again made itself known.

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Howells didn’t immediately start mining cryptocurrency because initially 7,500 BTC wasn’t the largest amount. According to him, he mined the cryptocurrency back in 2009 “for next to nothing” and even forgot about it when he threw away his hard drive.

However, the coins then began to be valued in the millions of dollars, leading the investor to organise a team to possibly find the storage medium and recover the information on it.

Newport authority spokesman James Goody, however, was unmoved by this. He said that, in accordance with the law, the disc became the property of the city council the moment it ended up in the local landfill. Well, the environmental rules clearly prohibit any such excavations on personal pretexts.


The landfill contains more than 1.4 million tonnes of waste. However, Howells said that thanks to the help of experts he had narrowed down the search area to the equivalent of 100,000 tonnes.


Goody also said that the offer to donate 10 per cent of the assets found was an attempt to force the city council to become a party to what was happening, and to act too hastily and recklessly.

How bitcoins are lost in life

Of course, there are fewer stories of such coin losses now, as investors have started to handle crypto much more responsibly as its value has grown. However, this does not mean that digital assets have stopped being lost.

The story of the loss of 10 bitcoins and $1.5 million worth of NFT in mid-December was particularly high-profile. The investor stored the private keys to the addresses using a Ledger hardware wallet, i.e. he approached security responsibly.

Ledger Nano S hardware wallet

Alas, that didn’t protect him from signing a malicious transaction in February 2022, which is what gave fraudsters access to the contents of his wallet. Why they delayed the theft so much is unknown.

According to Chainalysis analysts, 43.8 percent of stolen crypto in 2024 was obtained by hackers by stealing private keys – unique combinations that are used to access the contents of blockchain addresses and sign transactions to make them.

The most popular options for stealing cryptocurrencies in 2024

This means that you should be more careful than ever to keep your cryptocurrency wallet management combinations safe. There are special products for this purpose. For example, the Cryptotag Zeus titanium plate will protect the cid-phrase from fire, water and corrosion.

Cryptotag Zeus titanium plate to protect a crypto investor’s cid-phrase

Alternatively, the Cryptosteel Capsule Solo can be used to store the cid in a compact form factor.

Cryptosteel Capsule Solo, which allows you to fix a cid-phrase to metal


The conclusion from the James Howells situation is obvious: crypto investors should be more responsible about storing their coins. Ideally, they should use a hardware wallet for this purpose, which does not shine important combinations online and thus allows them to be safe from hackers online. Of course, the factor of human error is still relevant here, but this way the protection of digital assets will be at a much higher level.


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