I binned my boyfriend’s £569m Bitcoin fortune by mistake and now it’s lost in a huge landfill – it’s not my fault
A WOMAN who binned her boyfriend’s £569million Bitcoin fortune by mistake says it’s now lost in a huge landfill – but it’s not her fault.
Welshman James Howells, 39, claims he “mined” the 8,000 coins back in 2009, storing them on a hard drive.
The Bitcoin would now be worth more than half a billion pounds, but the drive is thought to be lost in a Newport Council tip.
His ex-girlfriend Halfina Eddy-Evans has now admitted taking the drive to the tip – but said James asked her to.
He is now fighting for the right to search the huge smelly tip in a desperate bid to find the drive.
Halfina told the Mail: “I hope he finds it – not that I want a penny of his money, but it will shut him up.”
Mum-of-two Halfina said James had put the drive in a black binbag full of rubbish.
She claimed he asked her to take the binbag to the tip, and she dumped it without realising the drive was inside.
Halfina said: “I’d love nothing more than him to find it. I’m sick and tired of hearing about it.”
James has vowed to take Newport Council to court for the right to dig up the tip.
He said if he finds the drive he will splash ten per cent of the £569million on Newport – turning it into the “Dubai of the UK”.
Back in 2009, early crypto enthusiast James picked up 8,000 Bitcoin for a tiny fraction of their value today.
But the sound of his laptop fan running while he mined the Bitcoin annoyed Halfina, who told him to stop.
He then knocked a glass of lemonade over the laptop, which never worked properly again.
James sold most of the parts and put the drive in a junk drawer, where he forgot about it for three years,
Eventually he cleared out the drawer into the binbag which Halfina took to the tip.
She said: “It looks like he’s blaming me, but I don’t think he really is, not that we are even talking now.”
There are more than 1.4million tonnes of waste to comb through at the landfill.
But James said he has narrowed down the hard drive to an area of 100,000 tonnes.
Newport Council said letting James search the tip would hurt the environment and break green rules.
Last month James said he was suing the council for just over £495million in damages for “withholding my property”.
A judge is set to rule on the case on December 3 after the council applied to have it thrown out.
Newport City Council said: “We have been contacted multiple times since 2013 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to be in our landfill site.
“The council has told Mr Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit.
“Work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area.
“The council is the only body authorised to carry out operations on the site.
“Mr Howells’s claim has no merit, and the council is vigorously resisting it.”
What is Bitcoin?
BITCOIN got you baffled? Here's what you need to know:
- Bitcoin is a virtual currency
- It’s traded between people without the help of a bank
- Every transaction is recorded in a public ledger, or “blockchain”
- Bitcoin is created by mining
- Mining involves solving difficult maths problems using computer processors
- Bitcoin can be traded anonymously, which can make it a popular way of funding illegal activities
- The value of Bitcoin fluctuates wildly
- Bitcoin is one of many different cryptocurrencies, but by far the most popular