Bitcoin buried in Newport landfill

In 2013, James Howells mistakenly disposed of a laptop hard drive containing the private key for 8,000 Bitcoin in the Docksway landfill in Newport, Wales.

[a] Howells subsequently assembled a team of specialists and secured funding to excavate the site, but Newport City Council refused permission, citing the cost and environmental impact of the search.

[5][2] The laptop, containing 32 kilobytes worth of Bitcoin private keys, was also used for gaming, and held music, e-mails and family photographs.

[2] Newport City Council notes that the hard drive was likely "buried under 25,000 cubic meters of waste and earth",[24] weighing approximately 110,000–200,000 tonnes,[5][8][25] with CNN saying that finding the device would be "almost impossible".

[24] The former manager of the landfill site says the hard drive is located in a 15,000 tonne section named Cell 2, where waste was buried between August and November 2013.

According to Howells, the proposed search involves the first case, unrelated to a criminal investigation, of excavating a landfill site in the United Kingdom.

The council cited cost concerns, environmental impact, galvanic corrosion of the device, and the potential of "treasure hunters" breaking the law.

[5] Initially the council took a soft approach to the situation, indicating that they would return the device if found, but later took a tougher stance,[12] and stated that searching for the hard drive would be against the law.

[4] In January 2021, after repeatedly requesting access to search for the device, Howells offered the council 25% of the proceedings then valued at approximately £200 million.

[26] Howells believes the drive is still functional due to its protective casing[27] and the anti-corrosive cobalt layer coating the glass disk.

[21][25][9] His team includes eight experts in landfill excavation, and a data recovery advisor who helped recover the black box from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

Howells sued the council for £495 million,[11][30] setting a date for a commerce court in Cardiff in December 2024, arguing for intellectual property rights among other claims.

In response, the council argued that they legally own the device as the property was deposited to the site; Howells's barristers denied such claim based on intent.

[25] In 2024, Howells' legal team stated in court that the metaphorical haystack was theoretically "much, much smaller", due to the "considerable expertise" involved in planning an excavation.

Docksway landfill, Newport, Wales , 2007. The hard drive containing the private key was buried here in 2013.
Logarithmic chart showing the number of Bitcoin transactions per month since 2009, when Howells began studying the protocol. [ 12 ]
Logarithmic mining difficulty chart of Bitcoin, showing the ease of mining in 2009 when Howells started mining. [ 22 ]
Logarithmic chart of the price of Bitcoin between 2011 and 2019, showing the increase in the value of the hard drive since its disposal. As the value has increased, Howells has escalated his attempts to try and retrieve the device. [ 12 ]