Man Who Threw Away $1 Billion In Bitcoin Debunks Rumors, Here’s The Progress

[Ben Graham]

James Howells, the British man who famously lost access to 8,000 Bitcoin in a 2013 landfill accident, is setting the record straight. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Howells pushed back against recent social media claims that he has abandoned his search. He firmly denied the rumors and revealed a new strategy to reclaim his lost fortune, now worth roughly $923 million. Although he’s no longer seeking permission from his local council to search the landfill, he’s far from done. 

Howells Debunks Rumors, Plans To Turn His Lost $1 Billion In Bitcoin Into Ceiniog Coin

In the post shared on X, Howells confirmed he has not given up and slammed years of rejection from Newport City Council. For over a decade, he says he tried public proposals, legal talks, mediation, and even offered over $30 million to recover the drive buried in the landfill. “$1 billion and they ignored it all,” he wrote. With no response from the council, he has decided to stop waiting.

Instead of continuing legal fights or making more offers, Howells announced a new plan: to tokenize the entire wallet of 8,000 BTC into a new cryptocurrency called Ceiniog Coin (INI). Named after an ancient Welsh coin, Ceiniog will act as a Layer 2 token built on Bitcoin, matching 1:1 with satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. He plans to create 800 billion INI tokens, each directly linked to the 8,000 BTC sitting on the lost drive.

According to Howells, Ceiniog will launch in late 2025, powered by Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN functionality. It will integrate with Web3 projects like Stacks, Runes, and Ordinals. With the ICO planned later this year, Howells hopes the coin’s market value will eventually match that of the lost BTC, making him a theoretical billionaire, just 8.34% away from that goal based on current prices.

How He Lost The Bitcoin And What He’s Done To Get It Back

The saga began in 2013, when James Howells, a British IT professional, accidentally threw out a hard drive that contained the keys to 8,000 BTC, now worth nearly a billion dollars. Realizing the mistake too late, Howells spent the next 12 years trying to recover it.

He submitted detailed recovery proposals, including environmental clean-up plans and AI-powered landfill scans. He even offered to raise $75 million by selling 21% of the Bitcoin’s value to fund the excavation. His most recent formal offer in July 2025, worth between $33 million and $40 million, included a full purchase of the landfill and a cleanup strategy. Citing environmental risks and lack of confidence in the outcome, the Newport City Council rejected the plan.

Now, instead of digging through landfill waste, Howells is building Ceiniog Coin as his way of reclaiming what he believes is rightfully his. He plans to debut the coin at a discount, letting early supporters buy in before the coin reaches its full value. Over time, he hopes the token’s value will naturally rise to reflect the worth of 8,000 Bitcoin.