Howells mistakenly threw out the machine throughout a house clean-up in June 2013, when the Bitcoin it held was valued at round $63 million. It was believed to be buried deep in a Newport landfill, however the native metropolis council repeatedly refused excavation requests, citing each environmental and monetary issues.
The landfill site itself is reportedly around 15 meters deep and holds approximately 200,000 tons of waste, making any recovery operation extremely difficult. Howells filed a $620 million damages lawsuit against the city council in late 2024, but the case was dismissed in January 2025.
Even after proposing to give 30% of any recovered Bitcoin to the city and its residents, regulatory hurdles and practical barriers ultimately led Howells to abandon the effort. His story underscores the “irreversible nature of early Bitcoin losses” and the enormous challenges of recovering lost digital assets from bodily storage.
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