Cryptocurrency investor finally stops searching for a digital wallet with $ 882 million worth of bitcoins

British IT specialist James Howell from Newport, Wales, has finally given up his attempts to find a hard drive that stored 7,500 bitcoins BTC $111,198.00 Mezo Wrapped BTC 2.52% Market capitalization $40.49 million VOL. 24 hours $1.97 billion worth about $ 882 million (as of 2.09.2025 — ed.). In 2013, he accidentally threw away the drive while cleaning up, and since then he has been trying to get permission to excavate the city’s landfill for more than a decade. Despite numerous plans, funding, and publicizing the story, the city council remained steadfast in its refusal.

Over the years, Howell assembled a team of experts and even secured the support of venture capitalists willing to invest $ 10 million in a large-scale operation. His plan called for the use of excavators, conveyor lines, and scanners with artificial intelligence elements to locate the disk among the compacted debris. However, the local authorities constantly emphasized the environmental and sanitary risks: possible leakage of toxic substances, environmental pollution, and threats to the health of residents.

Howell’s confrontation with the council became not only a personal drama but also a media story. The last stage of his search was filmed by a team of documentary filmmakers. The film, titled The Hard Drive, created in cooperation with the BBC, was supposed to show either the triumphant recovery of the lost wealth or the final defeat. Now the film has turned into a chronicle of the end of a long and fruitless struggle.

For Howell himself, living with the realization of his mistake has become a real psychological burden. Each new increase in the price of bitcoin publicly emphasized the scale of his loss. In numerous interviews, he admitted that it was an emotional roller coaster that lasted more than a decade. His story became a symbol of how fragile digital wealth can be in the real world.

Howell called the final decision to give up the search «the end of the agony.» For him, this means getting rid of an obsession that has long defined his life. Although the possibility of recovering the lost cryptocurrency has now completely disappeared, for the first time in decades, he has a chance to start a new chapter outside of the story that has become a legend of the digital age.