A decade-long legal battle over a lost Bitcoin fortune has ended in disappointment for James Howells, an IT engineer from Newport, Wales.
A Cardiff High Court has dismissed Howellsโ lawsuit against Newport City Council, according to the BBC, refusing him access to a landfill containing a discarded hard drive holding 8,000 Bitcoins.
The hard drive, accidentally thrown away in 2013, is now valued between $700-750 million at the time of writing, with Bitcoin (BTC) recently hitting above $94,000 per unit.ย
Howells had sought permission to excavate the site or receive ยฃ495 million in compensation, offering a share of the recovered Bitcoin to the council and the local community.
However, Judge Keyser KC ruled there were no โreasonable groundsโ for the claim, citing environmental concerns and the councilโs ownership of the landfill contents.
The landfill reportedly holds 1.4 million tonnes of waste, but Howells claims to have pinpointed the hard driveโs location to a 100,000-tonne section.
Reacting to the ruling, Howells expressed frustration, calling it a โkick in the teeth,โ according to the BBC.ย
Howells, an early Bitcoin adopter, mined the cryptocurrency in 2009 when it had negligible value. Despite repeated negotiations and assembling a team of experts for the recovery effort, the council maintained that excavation was impossible due to environmental regulations.
While Howellsโ ownership of the Bitcoins was not contested, the courtโs decision closes a chapter in a saga marked by missed opportunities and legal roadblocks.
