A Wales man who accidentally threw out a hard drive with millions of pounds worth of bitcoin has offered to share his wealth with the city if he is allowed to search through a landfill for it.
James Howell, a 35-year-old IT worker in Newport, offered to give the city a portion of his bitcoin value if the city’s council allows him to search through the city’s landfill for a hard drive that reportedly has £230 million (approximately $300 million) worth of the digital currency, WalesOnline reported.
Howell has been asking the city’s council for eight years for permission to search the landfill, after he claimed he had accidentally discarded the drive in 2013, WalesOnline further reported.
Man pleas to search landfill for ‘£210m ‘ Bitcoin hard drive he threw out in 2013 https://t.co/o16vKXNVaE
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 14, 2021
“Basically what I’m saying to Newport council is if you allow me to search in a specific area, and I find it, I’m happy to give the people of Newport 25 per cent,” Howell told WalesOnline about the proposal. Howell added that he would be willing to give it to “anyone who is struggling right now,” the outlet reported. (RELATED: REPORT: Young Women On Walk Fined By Police Over COVID-19 Restrictions)
The Newport City Council told WalesOnline that the cost of digging the landfill could run into the millions of pounds without any guarantee the hard drive was still there — or even functioning, if it was found.
“We have, therefore, been clear that we cannot assist him in this matter,” the council concluded in their statement.
Cryptocurrency has jumped exponentially in value over the last several months. However, it has also led to several high-level lawsuits and investigations into unlicensed securities and debate on how it should be classified.