A British man who wants to get a hard drive containing bitcoin from a city dump offers to buy landfills. The owner says that today’s wallet is worth nearly $770 million.
James Howells, who spent the last 12 years trying to persuade officials in Newport, UK, to have him explore the city’s landfills, is now offering to buy a dump.
Howells believes the landfill contains his old hard drive. His attempts to pass through legal measures reached a dead end in January. The judge ruled that if the case continued, his efforts lacked a “realistic prospect of success.”
However, this year, the landfill has been closed and reportedly will be replaced by solar farms. And Howells sees it as the opening.
“The council, which plans to close landfills, particularly at the High Court, will have a major impact on Newport people, and at the same time, greatly affecting them, particularly those in High Court. It’s a very surprising thing because they claim to give it, they were planning on closing the landfill anyway,” he told the UK media outlet Metro. “You may be interested in purchasing landfills. I recently discussed this option with my investment partner and it’s very on the table.”
The overall situation began in the summer of 2013. Howells accidentally placed a laptop containing his Bitcoin wallet (7,500 Bitcoin) in a black bag in the hall of his house. His partner at the time assumed that the bag was filled with trash and was disposing of it.
At the time, the price of a single Bitcoin was close to $100. Today, it’s about $97,000.
Howells offered to split the Bitcoin value in his wallet with the city of Newport, saying that he himself would pay for the excavation. Authorities claim that searches were not possible due to environmental permits and that as soon as the hard drive entered the landfill it became city property.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.