Man who binned Bitcoin says it's now worth £500m

A man who has spent the last decade trying to retrieve a lost Bitcoin fortune from his local landfill says it is now worth around £500m.

James Howells, an IT engineer from Newport, said he accidentally discarded a hard drive reportedly containing 8,000 units of the coveted cryptocurrency back in 2013.

He said it was worth £4m when it was mistakenly binned, but now estimates its value to have risen to around £500m.

Newport City Council has refused his pleas to excavate the tip site, previously saying the excavation was "not possible" under its licencing permit and "excavation itself would have a huge environmental impact on the surrounding area".

19 November 2024