The wrong hard drive went outSourced
He threw away one of two drives.
It held a Bitcoin private key.
In 2013, James Howells in Wales discarded a hard drive after mistaking it for another. It held the private key to roughly 8,000 Bitcoin. He sought to excavate the landfill, but the city refused permission over environmental and safety concerns.
Knowing where it went
does not mean getting it back.
Summary / translation: Unbubly · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Bitcoin buried in Newport landfill · Wikimedia contributors
Bitcoin buried in Newport landfill ↗
Adapted, summarized and translated from the source. Adapted text is also available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Reviewed: 2026-10-01