The Incredible Saga of James Howells: The Man Who Threw Away $900M in Bitcoin

James Howells, a Welsh Computer engineer from Newport, is famous for one of the most notable cases of lost cryptocurrency. James’s ex-girlfriend mistakenly threw away a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC, which is recently worth $900 million in BTC in 2013. James pursued a great profile quest over a decade to recover the hard drive from the Newport landfill site as the value of the digital assets grew to thousands of dollars. 

Incident of Lost Cryptocurrency (BTC)

In 2013, the IT engineer James Howells made an expensive mistake in tech history. The ex-girlfriend of Howells accidentally threw away a hard drive containing private keys to 8000 BTC during a routine office cleanup. In 2009, when the cryptocurrency was almost worthless, James, an early technology enthusiast, had mined the coins. 

The disposal of the drive by the ex-partner ended up buried in a wasteland in Newport, Wales. At that time, the digital coin was valued at over $6.5 million.

“Done Asking Permission,” Said James

For over 12 years, James committed to a relentless campaign to retrieve the lost drive, encountering many issues connected with legal, environmental, and logistical aspects.

On X, Howells mentioned that he developed several opportunities to negotiate with the council of Newport City, Wales, to help him search in  Newport landfill, where the hard drive was lost, involving legal action and public proposals, by offering $30M. Anyhow, the Newport City Council has continuously declined, highlighting logistical as well as environmental concerns.

The initial interference encountered by James was to obtain permission from the city council of Newport in connection with landfill excavation. For that, he made various comprehensive proposals, containing a unity of environmental engineering, data recovery, and waste management. Further, his plan involves the utilization of modern and innovative technology like robotic systems, AI drones, and other special equipment for positioning the hard drive within large tons of solid waste. To quickly accept the proposal, he offered a share of the lost currency’s value to the City Council. But to no avail, the city Council continuously rejected the proposal by pointing out the financial liabilities and the logistical obstruction of the operation. 

James had a proper discussion with the council leaders of Newport City, but all his attempts became a failure because the authorities rejected all his proposals by highlighting many concerns.

After continuous refusals, James Howells said to Forbes Australia that he had done asking permission and he was no longer undertaking excavation with the Newport City Council. He also added that, according to UK law, the 8000 BTC  are legally mine, and the remaining amount can be verified by anyone at any time around the world. 

However, James Howells has dedicated his valuable time and energy to trying to access the landfill and recover the lost BTC.

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“Ceiniog”, a New Digital Coin Initiative 

James finished his endeavor to regain the lost BTC from the Newport landfill, Wales in August 2025. He identified a new movement for regaining his lost money, and he introduced his own cryptocurrency named Ceiniog coin.  Instead of buying the landfill to retrieve it, James made something new, like a web3 payment landscape boosted by the lost coin’s national value. The main goal of James in connection with the launch of a new cryptocurrency is to build a dormant wallet active by converting it into a vault for a decentralized payments infrastructure instead of unlocking it directly.

James named the new digital coin after the old Welsh word for penny, and this project will provide discounted coins via a global ICO. In this new launch, he mainly focuses on making a quick, scalable payment network on the best of the BTC blockchain.  The new digital token is developed on the BTC network, using OP-RETURN, and is structured to mix with Ordinals, Stacks, and Runes.

The Ceiniog coin’s distribution to users will be designed to go live on October 1, 2025, at the main event in Singapore, “TOKEN2049”. James launched the new coin as a strong challenge to the authorities who had stopped his physical search efforts. He stated that they can block the gates and pack the courts, but they can’t block the blockchain.