A judge has ruled against a man’s attempt to retrieve a Bitcoin hard drive worth £598m from a landfill in Newport, Wales
Newport: So, there’s this guy, James Howells, who thought he could dig up a Bitcoin hard drive worth a whopping £600 million from a landfill. Sounds wild, right? He claims his ex accidentally tossed it out back in 2013, and now it’s worth a fortune.
He’s been trying to convince the local council to let him search through the rubbish, saying he’s narrowed it down to a specific area. But the council wasn’t having it. They took his case to court, arguing that the landfill is now their property.
The judge, Keyser KC, wasn’t impressed. He said there was no real chance of the case winning in court and that there weren’t any solid reasons for it to even go to trial. Ouch!
Howells has been into Bitcoin since the early days and totally forgot about the hard drive until its value skyrocketed recently. He even got a hedge fund on board to help him out.
He’s been trying to play nice with the council, hoping to work together, but it seems they’re not interested. They even argued that allowing him to dig would go against environmental rules.
In the end, the judge ruled that there just wasn’t enough to back up Howells’ claims. It’s a tough break for him, but it looks like that hard drive is staying buried for now.
