Woman ‘threw away’ £569m Bitcoin fortune and says she’s ‘sick of listening to about it’

A woman has shared the shocking moment she realised she had accidentally thrown away a fortune of £569million. Halfina Eddy-Evans confessed that she unknowingly dumped an old hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoins at a tip in Wales.

The bitcoins were mined by her ex-boyfriend, James Howells, back in 2009 and are now worth a staggering amount. Howells is currently battling for permission to search the landfill site managed by Newport Council, where Halfina claims she disposed of the hard drive about 10 years ago.

Despite their break-up, Halfina told Mail Online that she hopes her ex finds the lost fortune, not because she wants any of the money, but to finally put an end to the saga. She said: “Yes, I threw away his rubbish, he asked me to.

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The computer part had been disposed of in a black sack along with other unwanted belongings and he begged me to take it away. I had no idea what was in it but I reluctantly dropped it off at the local tip on the way home from going on the school run.”

“I thought he should be running his errands, not me, but I did it to help out. Losing it was not my fault. I’d love nothing more than him to find it. I’m sick and tired of hearing about it.”

Now, Howells is taking the council to court in a last-ditch attempt to recover the ‘key’ to his Bitcoin jackpot, reports the Mirror.

He believes the digital key is on a laptop hard drive buried somewhere in 110,000 tons of rubbish in a nearby landfill, which has since been covered with grass.

The ‘lost’ fortune, now valued at £569m, has led him to pledge 10% of the proceeds to his local community.

Ms Eddy-Evans, a mother of two, commented: “Part of me thinks the council should let the tip site be dug up, it’s not helping his mental health with the thoughts of sitting in a fortune he can’t get. But the other part thinks for him just to drop it and let it go.

“I have no claim on whatever money he could be worth. He is the father of my two sons but I don’t want a penny of his money.”

A Newport City Council spokeswoman stated: “[The] Council has been contacted multiple times since 2013 about the possibility of retrieving a piece of IT hardware said to be in our landfill site.

“The council has told Mr Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our environmental permit, and that work of that nature would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area.

“The council is the only body authorised to carry out operations on the site. Mr Howells’s claim has no merit, and the council is vigorously resisting it.”

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