Newport resident James Howells is looking to buy the landfill where his £620 million ($768 million) Bitcoin stash is buried.
Background
- Howells, a computer engineer, mined around 8,000 BTC in 2009
- He believes that his ex-girlfriend mistakenly tossed out his hard drive containing a Bitcoin wallet in 2013
- He had earlier taken legal action to gain access to the landfill or pursue £495 million [$609 million] in compensation from the Newport City Council
- A UK judge, however, dismissed his case in January, stating there were "no reasonable grounds" for bringing the claim
- The judge was also skeptical about the “realistic prospect” of succeeding if it went to trial
Why should you pay attention?
- If the current owners are willing to negotiate at fair market rates, Howells and his investment partners are now interested in outrightly acquiring the Newport Docksway landfill site
- Howells has had discussions with several interested parties over the past few months
- Currently, he has "a few options on the table"
- He is also looking to appeal the Judge’s decision
- The site holds more than 1.4 million tonnes of waste
- Howells has, however, narrowed the location down to an area of 100,000 tonnes
Who said what?
- If his efforts fail, Howells will consider launching a utility token or NFT collection
- He asserted,
"Pretty confident the crypto world would have my back"
- It is also worth noting that the landfill site is expected to close in the 2025-2026 financial year
- The Newport Council is currently securing planning permission to convert part of the land into a solar farm
- Commenting on the current state of affairs, Howells said,
"The council planning on closing the landfill so soon is quite a surprise, especially since it claimed at the High Court that closing the landfill to allow me to search would have a huge detrimental impact on the people of Newport, whilst at the same time they were planning to close the landfill anyway”
Zooming out
- The purchase is not going to be a cakewalk
- It first has to be determined if Newport City Council is willing to sell the site to an investment and maintenance group
- Then, Natural Resources Wales ought to grant an excavation and reclamation permit
- Only after this can potential deals and figures be discussed
- Howells speculates that the inaccessible BTC could be worth over £1 billion ($1.2 billion) by 2026
