On August 5th, according to The Block, earlier this week, multiple posts on social media claimed that James Howells, an IT engineer from Newport, UK, has officially ended his search for the lost 8,000 BTC. James Howells told The Block via private message on platform X: "No, I haven't 'given up'. The circulating stories are partially true, but not exactly as they describe."
Howells explained that on July 1st, he formally proposed an offer to acquire and excavate the Newport landfill to the city council's leadership, legal team, and a council member, with a value between $33 million and $40 million. To raise acquisition funds, Howells had previously announced plans to launch a token based on Ordinals in October, representing 21% of the lost wallet's value. According to Howells, despite the substantial offer, Newport has not responded to or confirmed receipt of the proposal. So the situation is that if they don't sell, there's no need to purchase the landfill through token sales, and I'm no longer seeking to buy the landfill, advance excavation or recovery efforts, or engage in dialogue with the council or its representatives.
Howells stated that he has merely "shifted" his strategy and has not given up on recovering the lost Bitcoin, as he remains the legal owner of these 8,000 BTC, citing a High Court ruling from January. The council may possess the hard drive, but they do not own its digital contents—these 8,000 Bitcoin legally belong to me, and anyone globally can verify its balance at any time. Howells said he now plans to tokenize his legal ownership of the lost 8,000 BTC by issuing a Bitcoin Layer 2 smart token called Ceiniog Coin (INI), leveraging the upcoming network upgrade to remove the 80-byte limit on the OP_RETURN opcode in Bitcoin transactions, thus releasing more functional space. The token is expected to launch after October and plans to conduct an ICO later this year.
