Most people don't know James Howells mined 7,500 Bitcoin in 2009—worthless then. 😱
Back then, Bitcoin was a geeky experiment—Howells, an IT specialist from Newport, Wales, fired up his laptop and joined the early miners chasing Satoshi's dream. Pennies per coin. No one saw the rocket coming.
Fast-forward to 2013: marriage crumbles. During a brutal cleanup, his ex-girlfriend grabs the dusty 120GB hard drive—once loaded with those 7,500 BTC private keys—and chucks it. Destination? Newport City Council's massive landfill site.
Today? That drive's treasure is worth over $600 million at peak prices. Buried under 5 meters of rubbish, methane-belching waste, and chaos across 14 sprawling acres. Howells pinpoints it to a 3-meter zone using old emails, site maps, and GPS data from the dump era.
He begged the council: offered £11 million bond, pro excavation teams, even AI tech for safe digging. "It's my property rights," he told BBC. "I know exactly where it is."
Council slams the door—repeatedly. Fears of disease outbreaks, site collapse, toxic leachate poisoning groundwater. Legal walls thicken: high court losses, appeals crushed. Howells burns millions in fees, now crowdfunding for the fight.
Heartbreak fuels him. "It's life-changing for my family," he pleads in interviews. Public splits: enviros scream "no," crypto bros chant "dig, baby, dig." One man's trash, world's richest dump?
Tragic lesson: digital gold or ultimate landfill folly? Debate rages.
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