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James Howells, the man who has spent over a decade finding his misplaced hard drive containing over $900 million worth of Bitcoin (CRTPTO: BTC) riches, said Monday he has not given up despite repeated failures and will now tokenize his claim.
In an X post, Howells stated he made several attempts to negotiate with Newport City Council to allow him to search the landfill where the hard drive is believed to be, including public proposals, legal action, and even a formal offer of over $30 million. However, the council has consistently refused, citing environmental and logistical concerns.
“I am done asking permission,” the Wales-based software engineer said. His next plan of action involves tokenizing the entire wallet of 8,000 BTC into 800 billion Ceiniog Coin (INI), a Bitcoin Layer 2 token integrated with other blockchain technologies like Stacks, Runes and Ordinals.
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Howells told The Block that the idea is to launch a successful high-speed, high-scale, fast-confirmation, payment-focused web3 environment backed by 8,000 BTC and secured by the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Newport City Council didn’t immediately return Benzinga’s request for comment.
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The bizarre incident dates back to 2013, when Howells’ ex-girlfriend unintentionally dumped a hard drive containing 8,000 BTC in the trash.
When he lost the legal bid to excavate the site, Howells turned toward President Donald Trump for help, possibly influenced by the U.S. president’s pro-cryptocurrency stance.
The 8,000 Bitcoins would be worth a whopping $984.73 million at the all-time high price of $123,091.61 and $913.34 million at the prevailing market price of $114,168.