A British man named James Howells denies giving up on the search for his lost 8,000 BTC.

ChainThink reports: Earlier this week, multiple posts appeared on social media stating 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 the social platform X: "No, I have not 'given up'. Some of the stories circulating are true, but not as they described."

Howells explained that on July 1st, he formally submitted an offer to the leadership of Newport City Council, their legal team, and a member of parliament to purchase and excavate the Newport landfill, valued between 33 million and 40 million USD. To raise funds for the acquisition, Howells had announced plans to launch an Ordinals-based token representing 21% of the value of the lost wallet. According to Howells, despite the substantial offer, the Newport side did not respond or confirm receipt of the offer. So that's the situation; if they don't sell, there is no need to purchase the landfill through a token sale, I am no longer seeking to buy the landfill, no longer proceeding with excavation or restoration work, and no longer engaging in dialogue with the city council or its representatives.

Howells said he has merely "shifted" his strategy, but has not given up on recovering the lost bitcoins, as he remains the legal owner of these 8,000 BTC, citing a High Court ruling from January of this year as precedent. The city council may have the hard drive, but they do not own the digital content within it - these 8,000 BTC are legally mine, and anyone in the world can verify the balance at any time. Howells stated that he now plans to tokenize his legal ownership of the lost 8,000 BTC, launching a Bitcoin layer-2 smart token called Ceiniog Coin (INI), utilizing the upcoming network upgrade to remove the 80-byte limit of the OP_RETURN opcode in Bitcoin transactions, thereby unlocking more functional space. The token is expected to be launched after October and is planned to conduct an ICO later this year.