Man whose ex accidentally tossed his £225 million Bitcoin drive in the bin 'will never find it'

The idea of losing a tenner is heartbreaking to this writer. Never mind £225 million.

Sadly that is very much reality for one Brit, whose Bitcoin findings worth hundreds of millions were accidentally thrown out.

And it's something that he's never likely to now find, according to one source.

James Howells lost his Bitcoin hard drive worth £225m following a break up with his former partner.

He had mined a staggering 8,000 bitcoins which he stored on the hard drive. But it was accidentally thrown out by his ex during a clear out more than a decade ago, with it being stored in a bin bag and her not knowing it was there.

And with the recent resurgent of the value of Bitcoin, Howell's Bitcoin haul is actually worth £450m on the active market.

It is now believed the hard drive - which is only the size of an iPhone - has been sitting in a waste disposal centre in Newport, South Wales, since 2013.

BBC

But even with a reward of £10m to whoever finds it up for grabs, one worker at the site said the chances of finding the lost piece of tech is zero.

They told MailOnline: "There's 24-hour security - everyone who works here knows about what's supposed to be buried in the landfill under the hills.

"But the other problem is, where would they start looking? The two small hills cover several acres, they'd never find it.

"The owner has visited the site many times - if it's here it's under one of those two hills in the distance. He's adamant but no one can know for sure if it's here - some of the stuff that arrives is sent off to incinerators."

The employee explained that even if the local authority gave Howells permission to under take the mammoth exercise: ''It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.... it would be impossible'.

BBC

They added: "Unless the computer stuff has some sort of homing device on it, there's just no way. The fella should just forget about it and move on."

Newport City Council, which runs Newport Household Waste Recycling Centre in South Wales, has already denied Howells permission to launch a massive excavation of the site.

He believes the item is in an area of the site where 100,000 tonnes of waste can be found.

Some believe Howells should be given a chance. One worker said: "If he has an idea where it could be then he should be allowed to look for it.

"At the end of the day it's his property, if it can be returned then why not?"