In August 2013, the Welshman was James Howells in the process of clearing out the office. Going through his drawers he found two hard drives of the same size. One was empty, while the other contained bitcoin. He accidentally put the bitcoin hard drive in the garbage bag and kept it empty.
When Howells went to bed that night, he asked his then-partner if, after the school bus the next morning, she could take that garbage bag and another to the recycling center in Newport.
His partner refused, explaining that she did not want to do it. It didn’t matter to Howells, because he would still double check if he had put the right hard drive in the garbage bag the next morning.
But when he woke up at nine o’clock, his partner had already returned from the school bus and, after all, had taken the garbage bags to the recycling station.
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Value over 5 billion
The hard drive contained a whopping 8,000 bitcoins that Howells had accumulated, essentially for free, over the years before that.
In the fall of 2013, a few months after the hard drive had been thrown away, the crypto-coins were “only” worth just over $14 million. But in a short time, the bitcoins became increasingly valuable, and they continued to rise in value significantly in the years to come.
Today, Howell’s bitcoins have a value of approximately SEK 5.3 billion, according to CoinDesk.
Photo: Unsplash
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James’s desperate search
For the past ten years, James Howells has not stopped looking for the hard drive.
He has made several requests to the Newport Municipal Board to dig up the landfill and try to find his fortune. Among other things, he has put together a work team that can dig through 100 tons of trash – as long as he gets permission from the city to do the excavation.
If he gets his way and the hard drive is found, Howells has promised to offer the city ten percent of what the bitcoin is worth.
But Newport has said it is impossible to do such a large excavation and then repeatedly ignored Howell’s requests – which has now prompted him to take drastic action.
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“Newport would look like Dubai”
The newspaper WalesOnline has read a document which states that James Howells is now suing Newport’s municipal board for over six billion kroner.
– I still allocate ten percent of the value to the board, even though they have been problematic all along. It would be £41 million based on today’s rate, but in the future it could be hundreds of millions, he told the newspaper, adding:
– If they had talked to me in 2013, this place would look like Las Vegas now. Newport would look like Dubai. That is the opportunity they have missed.
The case is due to go to court in December this year – so it remains to be seen whether James Howells will ever see his 8,000 bitcoins again.
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