James Howells, a man from Newport, Wales, has been searching for a hard drive he accidentally threw away back in 2013. That hard drive contained approximately 8,000 bitcoins — now worth nearly 950 million dollars.
Howells mistakenly discarded the hard drive while cleaning his office. Since then, he has made numerous attempts to locate it at the Newport landfill site. He even offered to purchase the entire landfill, but the city council rejected his proposal.
Some experts believe the drive is likely too damaged to recover after twelve years buried in the landfill, due to corrosion and environmental factors. Nevertheless, Howells remains determined to find it and recover his lost fortune.
He had previously planned to sell 21% of the lost bitcoins as digital tokens to fund the search, but legal and environmental barriers prevented him from moving forward.
This unusual story has attracted widespread attention on social media and in the press. Recently, a Los Angeles production company acquired the rights to turn his story into a series, tentatively titled “Buried Bitcoin.” The show is expected to stream on Netflix.
While some call this the biggest financial mistake of the century, others question whether the hard drive ever truly existed in the first place.
