We’ve all accidentally got rid of things which we didn’t mean to while decluttering, but I’ll bet you’ve never chucked out a hard drive that’s supposedly worth more than half a billion.

So spare a thought for James Howells next time you are reorganising your prized possessions, as he believes his Bitcoin fortune is sat at the bottom of a landfill site near Newport, Wales.

The 39-year-old has been at war with the local council for more than a decade while trying to retrieve the bin bag which he says contains a hard drive with 8,000 Bitcoins on.

It would have been worth around four million quid when it was mistakenly chucked out by his former partner, but its value has reportedly soared to over £569 million recently.

So you can understand why James is willing to move mountains – or in this case, dig through 1.4million tonnes of rubbish at Docksway Landfill – to get his hands on it.

The cryptocurrency has been valued at an all-time high, and even if you’d only invested a tenner into it back in 2010, you would be filthy rich now.

James explained that his private key, which is a digital key used to access his Bitcoin, was stored on his computer’s hard drive.

The gadget – which is only the size of an iPhone – was later removed when he upgraded his PC and he placed it into a desk drawer.

However, it was thrown away in 2013, prompting him to repeatedly call on Newport Council for help with his crypto predicament, claiming he has ‘pinpointed’ the exact spot where the elusive bin bag is.

But James’ requests have fallen on deaf ears, with the council saying that an excavation was ‘not possible’ under it’s licensing permit.

James Howells has launched legal proceedings against Newport Council (BBC)

Newport Council also said there would be a ‘huge environmental impact on the surrounding area’ if they allowed him to have a root around the landfill.

James had previously tried to twist their arms by proposing that the local authority could have 25 percent of his Bitcoin fortune to fund local community projects.

Now, he’s reduced his offer to 10 percent and has launched legal proceedings against Newport Council.

The bloke has lodged a writ of £495,314,800 to retrieve the hard drive from the landfill site, and is being backed by a team of wealthy investors

His legal team is suing the council and the matter is set to end up in court in December.

James said that in his eyes, the local authority are ‘withholding his property without his consent’ and aren’t allowing him to search for it.

“The last time we put an offer to them to meet it was worth £500million, a few weeks ago, and they refused that,” he said.

He reckons the Bitcoin on his hard drive is worth more than half a billion (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

“There is an object in Newport worth almost $750million (£593million) and Newport council don’t want to look for it.”

With Donald Trump’s recent win at the US 2024 election, Bitcoin has reached $80,000 (£62,000) per unit, and Howells speculates that his Bitcoin could be worth £1 billion by next year.

“There is an object in Newport worth almost $750m (£593m) and Newport council don’t want to look for it.” he said.

“I am still willing to avert court action and have a sensible and amicable conversation with Newport City Council, but there has to be no messing around.

“They have to come and speak to me.”

A Newport City Council spokesperson told the BBC: “Mr. Howells has brought a civil claim against the council for a sum in the region of £0.5bn.

“The claim has no merit, and the council is vigorously resisting it.”

LADbible has contacted Newport City Council for further comment.

You’ve probably heard a lot about Bitcoin, but little do you know that you missed out by not investing even a hundred quid ten years ago.

That’s right, what you’re about to read is going to make you wish that you could make like Marty McFly and travel back to a time, when you could have inadvertently made yourself a bit of extra cash.

Now, Bitcoin is something that a lot of people are serious about investing in, and it was basically the thing that popularised cryptocurrency for a lot of people in our generation.

Some people scrimped and saved to buy just one Bitcoin, and although they might have cashed out ages ago, others kept hold of it like a lifeline.

That’s because the returns are getting better and better.

Considering it’s not even tangible money that you can feel in your hand, it sure does look nice when you open your app to find that the £100 you spent in November 2014 has now turned into a mini jackpot.

Did you invest in Bitcoin in 2014? (Getty Stock Photo)

According to Coin Gecko, the price of one bitcoin has seen a whopping 2,054 percent rise in the last decade, which is great news for those who actually took the leap to buy some.

That’s around a 25.3 percent year-on-year increase of $1,226.31 each year.

Had you invested a hundred back then, you’d have had 0.42 Bitcoin, making you a tasty £28,644 (ish) quid back on your investment today in 2024.

The average price for one Bitcoin ten years ago was about £238, and as Bitcoin is trading near the £68,200 mark, your sliver of Bitcoin would have substantially increased in value.

But it’s not all been shiny for Bitcoin, as it actually had two recent drops that were downright insane.

Between 2018 and 2019, the value of Bitcoin dropped 73 percent, and there was also a 64 percent drop between 2022 and 2023.

The volatile crypto market is well-known, and you’ve got to take the risk to be in for a chance to win the rewards.

And the rewards just keep mounting as it continues to increase its value.

But imagine if your value was so much more than nearly 30k? Say, £495 million?

Your £100 would be nearly 30k today (Getty Stock Photo)

That would be an amazing thing to have accomplished.

That is, unless you accidentally threw it out, and the council went on to refuse to let you dig it up.

This is exactly what happened to James Howells, 39.

Howells is now set to head for court later this year, as he says he has ‘pinpointed’ the exact spot where his lost bin bag containing his fortune in cryptocurrency is, and he isn’t taking no for an answer.

He said: “It is what it is. I could spend the rest of my life working nine-to-five and thinking about it every day. I might as well spend my time trying to recover this simple piece of metal.

“Until the courts tells me ‘N-O spells no’, I’m going to keep going. Obviously my finances are not in the best position at the moment.

“I’m focusing all my current efforts and resources, including money, on the recovery project. I struggle along in the meantime.

“But the legal effort is covered. We’re willing to go all the way to the appeals court, the Supreme Court. With a case of this magnitude I’m expecting to go the full distance. I didn’t really want to go to court but this is the final shot.”

If you invested just £10 into Bitcoin in 2010, you would be laughing all the way to the bank.

The cryptocurrency has been valued at an all-time high, and if you’d put your money down back in the day, you’d be absolutely loaded.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin has reached an all-time high (Getty Stock Images)

Bitcoin is a digital currency that operates on a network unmanaged by a single person or organisation.

The way it works is that transactions are verified and recorded on a public ledger called the blockchain, maintained by a global network of computers.

The currency itself is created through a process called mining, where computers solve complex math problems.

Bitcoin has become very popular in recent years, because it’s untethered tied to any government or bank.

People all around the world can use Bitcoin to send money with low fees.

Similar to stocks and shares, the value of Bitcoin changes based on supply, demand, and market interest.

Why has Bitcoin reached an all-time high?

Following Donald Trump’s presidential election win, promising more crypto-friendly regulations, the value of Bitcoin has reached a record high.

Stocks and shares, generally, have also soared, while some of the big tech firms have taken a slight hit.

How much would £10 of Bitcoin be worth in 2010?

If you bought just £10 worth of Bitcoin in 2010, you would be silly rich (Getty Stock Images)

In May 2010, Bitcoin was valued at around £0.003, based on early exchange rates, so a £10 investment would have bought approximately 3,333 BTC.

So at today’s price of £72,000 per Bitcoin, 3,333 BTC would be worth a whopping £239,976,000, at the time of writing.

Yep, you’d be filthy rich.

What the experts have said about Bitcoin

Prof Carol Alexander of the University of Sussex Business School told CNBC back in January that if Trump won, the price could reach $100k (currently worth £79k) by the end of this year, and it’s almost there.

She said: “This bull run will increase adoption by retail especially, but also institutions. Unfortunately, this growth will be on the back of failing regulations.

“Huge hidden risks will be swept under the carpet as the US Securities Exchange Commission ceases to take out civil actions against unregulated exchanges.

“Elon Musk’s posts on X can also induce unwitting investors to herd into crypto, only to see prices fall again almost immediately.

“For instance, his famous ‘Doge Barking at the Moon’ in April 2021 sent the DOGE token price from 5 cents to 60 cents in a few days; but it quickly fell back to about 20 cents, where it still is today.”

The idea of losing a tenner is heartbreaking to this writer. Never mind £225 million.

Sadly that is very much reality for one Brit, whose Bitcoin findings worth hundreds of millions were accidentally thrown out.

And it’s something that he’s never likely to now find, according to one source.

James Howells lost his Bitcoin hard drive worth £225m following a break up with his former partner.

He had mined a staggering 8,000 bitcoins which he stored on the hard drive. But it was accidentally thrown out by his ex during a clear out more than a decade ago, with it being stored in a bin bag and her not knowing it was there.

And with the recent resurgent of the value of Bitcoin, Howell’s Bitcoin haul is actually worth £450m on the active market.

It is now believed the hard drive – which is only the size of an iPhone – has been sitting in a waste disposal centre in Newport, South Wales, since 2013.

BBC

But even with a reward of £10m to whoever finds it up for grabs, one worker at the site said the chances of finding the lost piece of tech is zero.

They told MailOnline: “There’s 24-hour security – everyone who works here knows about what’s supposed to be buried in the landfill under the hills.

“But the other problem is, where would they start looking? The two small hills cover several acres, they’d never find it.

“The owner has visited the site many times – if it’s here it’s under one of those two hills in the distance. He’s adamant but no one can know for sure if it’s here – some of the stuff that arrives is sent off to incinerators.”

The employee explained that even if the local authority gave Howells permission to under take the mammoth exercise: ”It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack…. it would be impossible’.

BBC

They added: “Unless the computer stuff has some sort of homing device on it, there’s just no way. The fella should just forget about it and move on.”

Newport City Council, which runs Newport Household Waste Recycling Centre in South Wales, has already denied Howells permission to launch a massive excavation of the site.

He believes the item is in an area of the site where 100,000 tonnes of waste can be found.

Some believe Howells should be given a chance. One worker said: “If he has an idea where it could be then he should be allowed to look for it.

“At the end of the day it’s his property, if it can be returned then why not?”