A decade-long legal battle over a lost Bitcoin fortune has ended in disappointment for James Howells, an IT engineer from Newport, Wales.
According to the BBC, a Cardiff High Court has dismissed Howells’ lawsuit against Newport City Council, denying him access to a landfill containing a discarded hard drive holding 8,000 Bitcoins.
The hard drive, which was accidentally thrown away in 2013, is now valued between $700-750 million at the time of writing, with Bitcoin (BTC) recently surpassing $94,000 per unit.
Howells had requested permission to excavate the site or receive £495 million in compensation, offering a portion of the recovered Bitcoin to the council and the local community.
However, Judge Keyser KC determined that there were no “reasonable grounds” for the claim, citing environmental concerns and the council’s ownership of the landfill contents.
Reportedly, the landfill contains 1.4 million tonnes of waste, but Howells claims to have identified the specific location of the hard drive within a 100,000-tonne section.
In response to the ruling, Howells expressed frustration, referring to it as a “kick in the teeth,” according to the BBC.
Howells, an early adopter of Bitcoin, mined the cryptocurrency in 2009 when it had minimal value. Despite multiple negotiations and the assembly of a team of experts for the recovery effort, the council maintained that excavation was not feasible due to environmental regulations.
While Howells’ ownership of the Bitcoins was not disputed, the court’s decision marks the end of a chapter in a saga characterized by missed opportunities and legal obstacles.