UK man offers £50 million in COVID relief to search dump for hard drive containing Bitcoin

A Welshman, who threw his hard drive containing bitcoin worth about £210m, has offered officials a GBP 50 million coronavirus relief fund if they let him search a landfill for his laptop. According to BBC, James Howells had 7,500 bitcoins on the hard drive, which he mistakenly threw away back in 2013. While speaking to the media outlet, he said that he was willing to donate 25 per cent of the value of the bitcoins to his home city, Newport, in South Wales if he found the device. 

Howells said that if he was to recover the hard drive, he would want the money to be put into a “COVID relief fund” for people in Newport to use “no questions asked”. However, Newport council has said that excavation was not possible under its licensing permit. The Welshman had bought the bitcoins for almost nothing in 2019, but the hard drive now costs GBP 210 million. 

The Newport Council has repeatedly rejected Howell’s request to be able to search the landfill, despite his offer of a cut of the bounty. Back in 2017, the value of the hard drive was approximately GBP 125 million, at which point he had made an offer to the local officials of 10 per cent, but unfortunately, the offer was refused. Since then, the bitcoin has shot up even further and he is willing to donate 25 per cent of the value of the buried treasure to his home city. 

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‘Win-win-win’ situation 

Howells said that searching for the discarded hard drive would “not be as hard” as one may think. He has said that he would employ a professional team and he even remembers when he threw and where he threw it, which could help find a grid reference of where the device is buried. He added that investors had also offered to cover the cost of excavating the landfill, in exchange for a large proportion of the recovered bitcoin. 

While calling it a “win-win-win” situation, Howells said that he wants to meet the council to discuss his plan. However, a spokesman for the council told the media outlet that Newport City Council has been contacted a number of times since 2013 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to contain bitcoins. But the Council has already told Howells on a number of occasions that excavation is not possible under the licensing permit and excavation itself would have a huge environmental impact on the surrounding. 

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