But despite facing numerous setbacks, he is determined to continue on his mission to retrieve it.

“This is my job, if you will. My 9 to 5,” he said, adding he would “absolutely not” give up.

The value of the cryptocurrency has dramatically increased in recent months, and with the hard drive currently worth about £620m, Mr Howells said “it makes sense for me to focus my energy on this” – although he does do some other work with crypto currencies.

Mr Howells, from Newport, claimed his ex-partner mistakenly threw out the hard drive, containing 8,000 bitcoins, in 2013, with it ending up in a tip owned by Newport City Council.

Last month, a High Court judge threw out his efforts to access the landfill or get £495m in compensation, saying there were no “reasonable grounds” for bringing the claim and “no realistic prospect” of succeeding at a full trial.

He is now planning a case – representing himself using artificial intelligence to support his claim – at the Court of Appeal. He has also expressed interested in buying the site after the council said it planned to close it in the 2025-26 financial year.

Newport council said it was making no further comment on the matter.

Mr Howells was an early adopter of cryptocurrencies, mining the Bitcoin in 2009 when it was a small fraction of its current value.

He has said that his former partner accidentally dumped the hard drive – about the size of a mobile phone – containing a Bitcoin wallet in 2013. As its value soared, he organised a team of experts to attempt to locate and recover it.

He repeatedly asked permission from the council for access to the site, offering it a share of the missing Bitcoin if it was successfully recovered.

After Mr Howells launched legal proceedings, the council applied for a High Court hearing to ask a judge to dismiss the claim before going to trial – which the judge did last month.

The council argued its environmental permits would forbid any attempt to excavate the site for the search and previously said such work “would have a huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area”.

Unwilling to give up, Mr Howells now believes he has two options open to him to retrieve the digital wallet – launch a case at the Court of Appeal, or work with investors to try to buy the landfill site from the council, after it announced the site is “coming to the end of its life” and it plans to close it within the next two years.

Mr Howells told BBC News he was pleased with the work his legal team had done in the High Court trial, but that he would now be representing himself in a case filed with the Court of Appeal – using an “artificial intelligence agent” to assist his claim.

He described AI as “an absolutely amazing technology” that had helped him better understand court processes and the law, and that he believed he had about seven “solid grounds in law” for his case, which he hopes to be able to present in-person to the Court of Appeal.

One of the arguments in his case will centre on the council’s plans to close the site, something he argued should have been revealed during the High Court trial.

“That is material information that should have been made [at the trial] – the judge should have been aware of that, as well as myself,” he said.

Mr Howells also said buying and fully excavating the site would save the council what he argued were significant maintenance costs once the site closes.

“Every single piece would be extracted or recycled, and at the end of the process we would have a hard drive in our hands – and we would also have an empty landfill,” he said.

In the High Court trial, the council also argued that the hard drive became its property as soon as it entered the landfill site, but Mr Howells said this failed to take into account the fact it was his ex-partner who threw it out.

“It was taken without my permission or consent,” he said.

Mr Howells said he was also exploring the option of buying the site from the council, adding he had “preliminary agreements” with investors – including those in the Middle East and the United States – who could make funding available if he had permission to buy the site.

“They’re not just going to put millions of quid in my back pocket… but if the council show a willingness to sell the site, then the funding will be available,” he said.

The council has made no indication it is interested in selling the site and, as part of its closure, has secured planning permission for a solar farm on part of the land.

Having spent many years pursuing it, including opening legal cases, Mr Howells said he was certain the hard drive remained on the landfill, which holds more than 1.4 million tonnes of waste.

He said he had done his “due diligence and research”, having spoken to a site manager at the landfill.

“Anything that was put into that site is still there. So, where else could it be?”

Asked if he would ever give up his mission to retrieve it, he said: “Absolutely not. This is like the final battle in Braveheart.”

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a virtual or digital currency that has no physical form.

Bitcoins can be split into smaller units, with a satoshi being the smallest monetary unit.

Satoshis are named after Bitcoin’s inventor Satoshi Nakamoto – believed to be a pseudonym – who wrote a key document about the currency in 2008.

Those investing in the product around this time, like Mr Howells, were part of a “very small” crypto community known as Cypherpunks, said Billy Bambrough, author of the CryptoCodex newsletter.

Bitcoin was not the first cryptocurrency to be invented, but it did gain considerable attention with early adherents being “very quickly enamoured with it”, Mr Bambrough said.

Prices began to rise in about 2016 and 2017, and again in 2020 during the Covid pandemic when “stock markets, cryptocurrencies and meme coins went up hugely”.

“A lot of people got very rich, but a lot of people also lost money,” Mr Bambrough said.

The cryptocurrency also saw rapid increases in late 2024, shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in the US general election, with his administration being seen as far friendlier towards cryptocurrencies than the Biden White House.

“A lot of people in the crypto and Bitcoin worlds say the price has gone up so much in such a short amount of time, they claim it could go higher and higher,” Mr Bambrough said.

“So I can understand why James [Howells] is keen to find his Bitcoin.”

Reacting to the decision, Mr Howells said he was “very upset”.”The case being struck out at the earliest hearing doesn’t even give me the opportunity to explain myself or an opportunity for justice in any shape or form. There was so much more that could have been explained in a full trial and that’s what I was expecting,” he said.He added he had “been trying to engage with Newport City Council in every way which is humanly possible for the past 12 years” and to now be told he was out of time felt like “a kick in the teeth”.”It’s not about greed, I’m happy to share the proceeds but nobody in a position of power will have a decent conversation with me,” he said.”This ruling has taken everything from me and left me with nothing. It’s the great British injustice system striking again.”During the hearing in December the court heard how Mr Howells had been an early adopter of Bitcoin and had successfully mined the cryptocurrency.As the value of his missing digital wallet soared, Mr Howells organised a team of experts to attempt to locate, recover and access the hard drive.He had repeatedly asked permission from the council for access to the site, and had offered it a share of the missing Bitcoin if it was successfully recovered.Mr Howells successfully “mined” the Bitcoin in 2009 for almost nothing, and says he forgot about it altogether when he threw it out.The value of the cryptocurrency rose by more than 80% in 2024.But James Goudie KC, for the council, argued that existing laws meant the hard drive had become its property when it entered the landfill site. It also said that its environmental permits would forbid any attempt to excavate the site to search for the hard drive.The offer to donate 10% of the Bitcoin to the local community was encouraging the council to “play fast and loose” by “signing up for a share of the action,” said Mr Goudie.In a written judgement the judge said: “I also consider that the claim would have no realistic prospect of succeeding if it went to trial and that there is no other compelling reason why it should be disposed of at trial.”The landfill holds more than 1.4m tonnes of waste, but Mr Howells said he had narrowed the hard drive’s location to an area consisting of 100,000 tonnes.Mr Howells has speculated that, by next year, the Bitcoin on his hard drive could be worth £1bn.

Buoyed by United States President-elect Donald Trump’s crypto-friendly stance, Bitcoin’s record rally hit a new high of $107,000 on Monday after the Republican reiterated his intention to create a Bitcoin strategic reserve.

Bitcoin, the first decentralised digital currency, was invented by the pseudonymous figure Satoshi Nakamoto in the wake of the 2007-2008 global financial crisis.

Nakamoto introduced the blockchain system – a digital ledger that stores transactions in a network of computers – to enable anyone to make financial transactions without the involvement of banks, financial firms or governments.

Once widely derided as a speculative asset with no intrinsic value, Bitcoin is being taken increasingly seriously by governments, financial institutions and investors alike.

Boaz Sobrado, a London-based fintech analyst, said Bitcoin has transformed from being a niche asset favoured by political dissidents and criminals carrying out Illicit transactions “to something that central banks have to keep in mind and consider”.

“The IMF has put very firm anti-crypto political guidelines into place when negotiating with countries that might require its own assistance. It’s gone from being an academic question to a practical, real one and one that central banks are taking very seriously now,” Sobrado told Al Jazeera.

In January, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved Bitcoin ETFs (exchange-traded funds), allowing investors to have exposure to the asset on the stock exchange for the first time.

In an October report, the US Department of the Treasury referred to Bitcoin as “digital gold”, noting its use as a store of value.

A number of countries have made big bets on the cryptocurrency.

El Salvador has accumulated some $600m worth of Bitcoin reserves and is one of just a handful of countries, along with the Central African Republic, that accepts the asset as legal tender.

Other countries, including the US and the United Kingdom, have acquired large holdings of Bitcoin through the seizure of assets implicated in criminal activity.

The US has seized at least 215,000 Bitcoins, valued at almost $21bn at current prices, since 2020, according to an analysis by crypto firm 21.co.

With Trump returning to the White House, Bitcoin supporters are hopeful that cryptocurrencies will gain unprecedented legitimacy after years of government-led crackdowns on the sector.

Despite once labelling Bitcoin “a scam”, Trump has emerged as arguably the world’s most powerful advocate for the asset.

After pledging to make the US “crypto capital of the planet”, he has picked several high-profile crypto enthusiasts to join his incoming administration, including former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as crypto tsar and Paul Atkins as SEC chair.

Trump’s pro-crypto stance has found allies in the US Congress, such as Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, who earlier this year introduced the BITCOIN Act of 2024, which would include Bitcoin among reserve assets such as gold and oil as a long-term store of value.

Under Lummis’s plans, the government would buy roughly 200,000 Bitcoins every year for five years, and then hold the assets for 20 years as a hedge against inflation.

“If we did that with five percent of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist – which is roughly a million Bitcoin – we could cut our debt in half in 20 years,” Lummis said in a television interview with Fox Business.

On Wall Street, derision and mockery have also given way to more positive appraisals.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who once described Bitcoin as an “index of money laundering”, in January said the commodity was “no different than what gold represented for thousands of years” and an “asset class that protects you”

The key attribute of Bitcoin that makes it revolutionary is that it separates money from the state, according to Max Keiser, senior Bitcoin adviser to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

“This is the first time in history that this has ever happened – money exists that has no central authority controlling it. This is what makes it unique, very powerful,” Keiser told Al Jazeera.

“There’s now this growing feeling that the 21st century will be the century of Bitcoin.”

Keiser spotted Bitcoin’s potential early on and advised people to buy it when its value was only $1 in 2011. That year, he and his wife, television presenter Stacy Herbert, called Bitcoin “the currency of resistance”, and predicted it would top $100,000.

One of the reasons Bitcoin has gained strength in value is the poor performance of economies such as Argentina, where inflation last year skyrocketed more than 200 percent, according to Gerald Celente, founder and director of the New York-based Trends Research Institute.

“People were seeing their currencies being devalued… People were saying: ‘I’m losing all my money, what am I going to do?’ They can’t afford to buy gold, so they started buying whatever they could in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, so that kept it strong,” Celente told Al Jazeera.

Since Trump’s election, Bitcoin’s price has risen by more than 50 percent and with an incoming pro-crypto administration, Celente predicts an even greater rally.

“[The value] could go through the roof, but we don’t see [Bitcoin] going down much at all,” he said.Crypto supporters argue that Bitcoin’s winning advantage is that its global supply is capped at 21 million.

Unlike central banks that can print money indefinitely, Bitcoin’s supply stays constant no matter the demand, which has helped boost its value against the dollar.Armando Pantoja, futurist and tech investor, believes that Bitcoin will appreciate in value “forever”, likening the purchase of the asset to buying real estate in Manhattan.

“Bitcoin has value not because of the currency, but because of the technology that governs it, blockchain technology,” Pantoja told Al Jazeera.“

In Bitcoin’s blockchain, there’s a certain supply of Bitcoin that comes out every 10 minutes, and every four years they cut it in half. Over time there is less and less Bitcoin being generated.

“Once it reaches the limit, no more can be created… That’s why it’s going to keep going up, every four years when they cut the supply, it has to respond positively. It has to keep going up to supply the demand.”

Keiser predicts Bitcoin will reach $1m in value in the coming years, with a market cap at least equal to gold’s market cap of $20 trillion.

“That would be $1m a coin. I think that would be a conservative estimate for the price for the next three to four years,” he said.

Bitcoin’s stellar rise, however, has not convinced everyone.Despite its recent rally, the commodity continues to be extremely volatile.

After hitting $107,000 at the start of the week, the asset had by Friday plunged below $97,000.

Many financial analysts continue to view Bitcoin as a bubble with little to support its stunning rise.

“The more resources Americans misallocate to #Bitcoin and #crypto-related businesses, the fewer resources will be available to devote to making stuff we actually need,” Peter Schiff, chief economist at Euro Pacific Capital, said in a post on X last month.

“The end result will be larger trade deficits, a weaker dollar, higher inflation, and a lower standard of living.

”Even as Trump’s positive stance towards Bitcoin has thrilled crypto enthusiasts, some pro-crypto governments have reined in their support of the sector.

El Salvador announced this week that it would privatize or close its cryptocurrency wallet “Chivo” as part of the terms of a $1.4bn loan deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Bukele’s government also agreed to make acceptance of Bitcoin by businesses voluntary, within steps to assuage the IMF’s concerns about Bitcoin-related risks.

Some crypto supporters see governments and central banks taking a leading role in the global march towards digitised money with the development of their own currencies.

Celente of the Trends Research Institute said the US, for example, could create its own digital currency as a way to pay off its federal debt.

“There’s no way the US can pay off their $36 trillion worth of government debt. They may come up with a new cryptocurrency as part of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency),” Celente said.

“You’re seeing more and more of the central banks talking about CBDCs, they’re definitely going to go into that direction,” Celente added.

“They’re going to use this as an excuse to come up with a coin because they cannot pay off the debt that they have now. They’re going to say, ‘This [digital currency] is worth a lot more than the dollar, yuan, the euro,’ and use that to pay off their debt.”

Some observers have warned that the introduction of CBDCs would open a Pandora’s box of problems related to government control and surveillance of people’s finances.

Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, is the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, which manages the stockpile of US Treasuries that back Tether, the largest stablecoin by market cap.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to a traditional commodity or currency to maintain a stable price. They have reached record volumes of more than $200bn in total market cap.

Sobrado said there could be an opening for Tether to become the national de facto privatised CBDC for the US, and for smaller economies such as the UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland to issue their own CBDCs.

“The pro-crypto voices and Fed-critical voices have never been louder in the White House,” Sobrado said.Celente said he had no doubt that the future of money is digital.“There’s no question at all,” he affirmed.

In March, the High Court ruled Craig Wright was not Satoshi, and ordered him to stop claiming he was.

However, he continued to launch legal cases asserting he had intellectual property rights to Bitcoin, including a claim he was owed $1.2 trillion (£911 billion).

A judge said that amounted to a “flagrant breach” of the original court order and sentenced him to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years.

However, Wright, who appeared via videolink, refused to disclose where he was, saying only he was in Asia.

It means an international arrest warrant would have to be issued if the UK authorities wanted to detain him.

Wright’s actions were described in court as “legal terrorism” that “put people through personal hell” in his campaign to be recognised as Bitcoin’s inventor.

The judge, Mr Justice Mellor, said Wright arguments were “legal nonsense” but acknowledged that he was not in the UK and “appears to be well aware of countries with which the UK does not have extradition arrangements”.

Starting in 2016, Wright claimed to be the man behind the mysterious moniker Satoshi Nakamoto – generally known as Satoshi – the person who invented the world’s first and largest cryptocurrency.

As the founder of Bitcoin, Satoshi could be one of the richest people in the world.The ballooning value of the cryptocurrency – which has shot up since Donald Trump was elected US president – means they would have an estimated $100bn (£80bn) of Bitcoin in their digital wallets.

However, Wright failed to provide concrete evidence for his claim, which was largely disregard by the cryptocurrency world.In an attempt to assert he was Satoshi, he launched costly legal cases against people and companies that challenged him.

His actions prompted a coalition of industry companies – the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA) – to force a high court trial this year to prevent him from carrying out any further legal cases.

A judge ruled in their favour saying Wright had “lied extensively” to support his false claim.

Copa lawyer Jonathan Hough said elements of Wright’s conduct during the trial “stray into farce” – but he told the court it also had “deadly serious” consequences and created a “chilling effect” on the industry.

Wright is one of many people who have been identified either by themselves or others as Satoshi.

However, all of those claims have either been debunked or rejected, meaning the search for the real creator of Bitcoin continues.

The global lender said risks related to the adoption of the world’s largest cryptocurrency had eased now that businesses will be allowed to decide whether or not to accept bitcoin.

In 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender.

This week, the cryptocurrency briefly hit a fresh record high of more than $108,000.

“Legal reforms will make acceptance of Bitcoin by the private sector voluntary. For the public sector, engagement in Bitcoin-related economic activities and transactions in and purchases of Bitcoin will be confined.”

The deal, which is aimed to help support El Salvador’s economy, still needs to approved by the IMF’s executive board.

The IMF had opposed the Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele’s crypto-friendly policies, warning they could become an obstacle to it offering financial assistance.

Still, Bukele celebrated on social media as bitcoin rallied after Donald Trump’s US election victory in November.

Earlier this month, as the price of bitcoin topped $100,000 for the first time, Bukele said in a social media post that his country’s holdings in the cryptocurrency had more than doubled in value.

He also blamed his political opponents for causing many Salvadorans to miss out on bitcoin’s rise.The cryptocurrency has rallied since Donald Trump’s election victory on the 5 November.

The incoming Trump administration is seen as being far more friendly towards cryptocurrencies than President Joe Biden’s White House.

On Thursday, the cryptocurrency retreated along with global stock markets after the US Federal Reserve signalled a slower pace of interest rate cuts next year.Bitcoin is currently trading at around $100,000.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency briefly passed $106,000 (£83,890), before falling back to around $104,500 in Asia trade on Monday.

The incoming Trump administration is seen as being far more friendly towards cryptocurrencies than the Biden White House.

On Thursday, the US president-elect reiterated that he is considering creating a national stockpile of the digital currency, similar to the country’s strategic oil reserve.

“The Bitcoin rally since the election has been parabolic and the FOMO – or fear of missing out – rally is gathering momentum,” Peter McGuire from trading platform XM.com told the BBC.

“Many investors believe $120,000 is achievable by the end of the year and then in 2025 there’s talk of greater than $150,000 by mid-year”.

Earlier this month, Trump named Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Sacks as his artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency tsar.Mr Sacks is former PayPal executive and a close friend of Trump adviser and mega-donor Elon Musk.

Trump has also said he would nominate pro-cryptocurrency Washington attorney Paul Atkins as the new head of the Wall Street regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Last month, the SEC’s current head, Gary Gensler, said he would resign from the role on the day of Trump’s inauguration, on 20 January next year.

“I thank President Biden for entrusting me with this incredible responsibility. The SEC has met our mission and enforced the law without fear or favour,” Mr Gensler wrote on the social media platform X.

Trump had previously revealed plans to sack Mr Gensler on “day one” of his new administration after the SEC chairman took legal action against cryptocurrency firms, sparking controversy in some quarters.

The $100,000 milestone prompted celebrations from cryptocurrency fans around the world.Bitcoin’s wildly fluctuating value has always attracted interest, with its backers reacting with delight when it has passed previous price thresholds – and defiance during its slumps.But this particular landmark has been especially keenly anticipated. For weeks charts, memes and predictions have swirled around social media about when the price would hit the figure thought to be one of the holy grails of the crypto world.Millions of viewers even tuned in to online watch parties as the price hovered close to $100k.The value of a single bitcoin is one of the barometers of optimism in the cryptocurrency industry which is now estimated to be worth $3.3tn, according to analysis firm Coin Market Cap.Trump’s election victory last month was the catalyst for the latest surge.The president-elect has vowed to make the US “the crypto capital of the planet” – a remarkable turnaround given as recently as 2021 he was calling Bitcoin a “scam.”Also remarkable is just how Bitcoin’s price has rocketed. A valuation of $100k represents a 40% increase on election day in the U.S. and more than double the price it started the year at.

But there’s lots more to Bitcoin than the dizzying changes in its value.From its enigmatic inventor to the bringing down of the so-called Crypto King, it’s a story with many twists and turns, which has seen the making – and losing – of huge fortunes.So here’s the BBC’s list of the seven wildest moments – so far – in Bitcoin’s tumultuous history.1. The mysterious creator of BitcoinDespite its enormous profile, no-one actually knows for sure who invented Bitcoin. The idea for it was posted on internet forums in 2008 by someone calling themselves Satoshi Nakamoto.They explained how a peer-to-peer digital cash system could work to enable people to send virtual coins over the internet, just as easily as sending an email.Satoshi created a complex computer system that would process transactions and create new coins using a huge network of self-appointed volunteers around the world who used special software and powerful computers.But he – or they – never revealed their identity, and the world has never worked it out.

In 2014, Japanese-American man Dorian Nakamoto was pursued by reporters who thought he was the elusive Bitcoin creator, but it proved to be a false lead caused by some mistranslated information.Australian computer scientist Craig Wright said it was him in 2016 – but after years of legal battles, a High Court judge concluded he was not Satoshi.Earlier this year, a Canadian Bitcoin expert called Peter Todd strongly denied being Satoshi, while in London this month a British man, Stephen Mollah, claimed he was – but no-one believed him.

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