UK man who lost 8,000 bitcoin in landfill says he hasn’t given up, pivots to tokenizing legal claim

James Howells, the man who has been hunting down his lost hard drive containing 8,000 BTC, addressed circulating reports claiming that he has given up on his 12-year search.

In 2013, a British IT engineer accidentally threw out his hard drive containing Bitcoin he had mined a few years earlier, which ended up in a landfill site in Newport. 

As bitcoin's value soared exponentially over the following years, Howells sought permission to excavate the landfill , only to have his request rejected by the regional council. Howells explored other options, such as using AI to help locate the hard drive. With today's bitcoin price of $114,231, Howell's lost hard drive is worth around $915 million.

Earlier this week, several social media posts emerged saying that Howells has officially ended his quest to recover the lost bitcoin. 

"No, I have not 'given up," Howells told The Block via direct message on social media platform X. "The story going around is partially true, but not in the way it’s being framed."

Howells explained that on July 1, he made a formal offer of between $33 million and $40 million in value to acquire and excavate the Newport landfill site, sent to the Newport City Council's leader, legal team and a member of its parliament. 

To raise funds for the acquisition, Howells had announced plans to launch an Ordinals-based token in October, representing 21% of the lost wallet's value.

Despite the sizable amount of the offer, Newport representatives have not replied or acknowledged the offer, according to Howells.

"So here’s where we stand — If they won’t sell, there’s no need for a token sale to buy the landfill," Howells said. "I am no longer pursuing the purchase of the landfill, I am no longer pursuing excavation or remediation, I am no longer pursuing dialogue with the council or its representatives."

Tokenizing legal ownership

Howells said he has simply "pivoted" his strategy, but has not given up on his lost bitcoin, as he remains the legal owner of the 8,000 BTC, citing a High Court ruling in January this year.

"The Council may own the hard drive, but they do not own the digital contents of that hard drive - the 8,000 bitcoin are legally mine in law - the balance of which can be verified by anyone worldwide at any time," Howells told The Block.

Howells said now he is planning to tokenize his legal ownership of the lost 8,000 BTC into a new Bitcoin Layer 2 smart token named Ceiniog Coin (INI), utilizing the upcoming network update that removes the 80-byte cap on the OP_RETURN opcode in bitcoin transactions to free up space for more functionality.

The new token is计划于十月后推出，Howells表示。

"The intention is to bootstrap the Ceiniog ecosystem and launch a successful high-speed, high-scale, fast-confirmation, payment-focused web3 environment secured by the Bitcoin blockchain and backed by 8,000 BTC," Howells told The Block.

The Block has reached out to Howells for further comment on how his new Ceiniog coin plan affects his ultimate goal of retrieving the lost bitcoin.