Ex-Girlfriend Discarded $711 Million Bitcoin Fortune in the Council Trash
In the quaint village of Newport, United Kingdom, a seemingly ordinary piece of hardware held a secret that would leave many in awe. This was no ordinary computer.
James Howells, a name now synonymous with one of the most infamous stories in cryptocurrency history, had once owned a small fortune in Bitcoin. Back in 2013, when Bitcoin was still in its infancy and not even close to its current valuation, James owned 8,000 Bitcoins. At that time, this might have seemed like just a digital experiment, but fast forward to 2024, and those Bitcoins would be worth an astonishing $711 million.
The Lost Fortune
The story takes a dramatic turn with the involvement of Halfina Eddy-Evans, James Howells' ex-girlfriend, who has now spoken out about the incident for the first time. Halfina admits to taking the hard drive to the trash in Wales, but she claims she did so at James's request. According to her, James had mined the Bitcoin himself back in 2009 and had subsequently forgotten about it. However, upon discovering that the 8,000 coins were now worth around $711 million, he began his fight to search the landfill operated by Newport Council.
Halfina recounts that she took the hard drive, which contained the privatekey to the Bitcoin fortune, to the trash nine to ten years ago. At the time, she was unaware of its significance. She explained, "Yes, I threw away his rubbish, he asked me to. The computer part had been disposed of in a black sack along with other unwanted belongings and he begged me to take it away, saying 'There's a bag of rubbish here to be taken to the tip'." She added that she thought James should have been running his own errands, not her, but she did it to help out. Halfina insists, "Losing it was not my fault."
Despite the split between James and Halfina, she expressed a desire for him to find the hard drive, not for any share of the fortune, but to put an end to the constant talk about it. She stated, "I hope he finds it, not that I want a penny of his money, but it will shut him up!" She further admitted her exasperation, "I'd love nothing more than him to find it. I'm sick and tired of hearing about it."
James's journey to recover his lost fortune is nothing short of a modern-day treasure hunt. He has spent over a decade trying to convince the Newport City Council to let him dig through the landfill where his wealth lies buried. His attempts have been met with resistance; the council sees his request as nothing short of a logistical nightmare and an environmental hazard. They've pointed out the massive amount of waste they would have to sort through, the potential for pollution, and the sheer improbability of finding one small hard drive in a mountain of garbage.
The story of James Howells isn't just about the loss of wealth; it's a poignant reminder of the ephemeral nature of digital assets. It highlights vulnerabilities associated with cryptocurrency — from the security of physical storage to the permanence of digital loss. Unlike traditional assets where one might have insurance or recovery options, digital currencies like Bitcoin can vanish into thin air with the loss of a private key or, in this case, the physical device on which it's stored.