James Howells pivots from landfill dig to tokenization in lost Bitcoin saga

Key Points

1. James Howells mistakenly discarded a hard drive with 8,000 BTC in 2013, now worth approximately $905 million.

2. After legal battles and failed excavation attempts, including a rejected UK Court of Appeal bid in March 2025, Howells is abandoning physical recovery efforts.

3. Howells plans to launch a DeFi-focused layer-2 network on Bitcoin, creating a token representing 21% of the lost wallet's value to fund potential future digs.

4. The new token will symbolically 'vault' the lost Bitcoin, eliminating the need to physically recover the hard drive.

5. Howells has signed a deal with a Los Angeles production company to develop a project titled 'The Buried Bitcoin,' highlighting his story.