Some people buy land for a house. Others buy it for investment. But sometimes, in the year of our Lord 2025, the stars align to where some Welsh guy wants to buy a landfill because he accidentally yeeted $800 million into the garbage. Yes, this is real life.

(Source: Giphy) 

In short, James Howells, a Welsh IT man turned walking cautionary tale, has been on a decade-long quest to retrieve a hard drive he threw out in 2013, which—unlike the other useless junk in the Newport landfill—contains the private keys to 8,000 Bitcoin. Back then, those coins were worth around $9 million. Today? Closer to $800 million. If you can visually see yourself setting your winning Powerball ticket on fire, this is exactly that. 

For years, Howells has been pestering Newport City Council to let him dig up their landfill to find his golden ticket. He even offered them $70 million in 2021 to let him go full Indiana Jones on their trash mountain. But the council, being shockingly reasonable for a government body, told him to kindly go kick rocks.

(Source: CNN) 

Which is why now, with his legal battles hitting a dead end, Howells has decided the only way to get his Bitcoin back is to buy the entire landfill himself. Like, literally purchasing the garbage dump, because apparently, this man has never met an idea too insane to pursue.  

Naturally, Howells posted on X that he’s “considering purchasing a landfill site” and that “funding is secured.” Which, if you’ve been on the internet for more than five minutes, sounds eerily similar to Elon Musk’s infamous ‘funding secured’ tweet about taking Tesla private. Spoiler alert: That funding wasn’t secured.

So with that, where does this leave Mr. Howells? Well a clear reality check that the money is probably gone… forever. I mean seriously, even if Howells somehow buys the landfill, finds the hard drive, and manages to extract those Bitcoin keys without the thing being completely destroyed, he’s still not out of the woods.

Because, fun fact: Hard drives don’t exactly hold up well under a decade of rain, dirt, and decomposing household waste. Best-case scenario, he finds it and hires a team of data recovery wizards to Frankenstein the thing back to life. Worst-case (and let’s be honest, most likely) scenario, he just spends millions of dollars sifting through literal garbage for absolutely nothing. 

(Source: MSN) 

Plus, the city isn’t exactly wrong for telling him no. Digging up a landfill is an environmental nightmare, not to mention wildly expensive—all for an outcome that’s about as certain as a Meme Stock rally holding up for more than 48 hours.

In the end, this is a story for the year that perfectly explains the world we live in now. Howell is the ultimate crypto bag holder during a time where most people lose money in crypto because they bought the top or HODL’d too long. Instead, this guy has lost almost a billion dollars because he mistook his financial future for an old USB drive and chucked it in the trash. And now, he’s on a hilarious (and news worthy) last-ditch attempt to undo the worst mistake of his life. 

(Source: Giphy) 

Will it work? Probably not. Will we keep watching? Abso-freakin-lutely. In the end, if you’ve read this far I apologize that this has ZERO to do with the market. But hey, sometimes people’s misfortunes become entertainment for others. And in this case, your welcome for the Saturday morning entertainment. As always, stay safe and stay frosty, friends! Until next time… 

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Stocks.News holds positions in Tesla as mentioned in the article.