it 's against the law .
in 2013 , though , " after i had stopped mining , the laptop i had used was broken into parts and sold on ebay , " howells tells the telegraph .
but , while cleaning his home in 2013 , he mistakenly put it into a waste bin at his local landfill site in newport , south wales , where it got buried .
back in 2009 , howells set an old laptop to mining bitcoin – back before you needed specialised hardware – eventually totting up 7,500 coins .
james howells , an it worker living in the united kingdom , knows exactly where his misplaced 7,500 bitcoins are but the city council where he lives wo n't let him retrieve them .
according to a report published in the telegraph , howells began mining bitcoin on his personal laptop in 2009 .
it would require diggers , plenty of specialist help , and , howells says , be the first such excavation that was n't related to a criminal investigation in the uk –
now , with bitcoin 's value hovering just above $ 17,000 wednesday , according to digital - currency website coindesk , howells tries not to let it get to him .
he kept the drive was accidentally binned , presumably landing in newport landfill .