Man who lost 7,500 BTC offers Newport council $72m to search landfill for disk

James Howells has offered Newport city council, United Kingdom, around $72 million to excavate the municipal landfill where his hard drive containing 7,500 BTC ended up, according to the South Wales Argus.

The engineer says he discarded the device in 2013 into a bin that was assigned a number and a corresponding spot on the landfill.

“If I gain access to the landfill records, I will be able to determine the exact location of the hard drive,” Howells said.

A Newport City Council spokesperson said that this is not the first such request. The council’s position is that excavations are not feasible for legal, economic and environmental reasons.

However, in the new inquiry Howells said he had secured backing from a hedge fund that is willing to finance the search for the lost bitcoins.

“The outer casing could have rusted. But the disk on which the data are stored should work,” Howells said with some hope.

The engineer pledged to donate 25% of $286.5 million in BTC if the disk is found, provided the municipality grants permission to search.

Earlier, on January 13, the former Ripple said he had lost access to a wallet containing 7002 BTC.

According to Chainalysis, about $140 billion in Bitcoin, or 20% of the existing 18.5 million BTC, sits in forgotten or lost wallets.

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