A UK judge has dismissed the long-running lawsuit of James Howells, who sought access to a landfill containing a hard drive containing Bitcoin worth more than $770 million. This ends the 12-year saga for the IT engineer from Newport, Wales who captured the cryptocurrency community all these years.
Back in 2009, Howells mined 8,000 Bitcoin, which was undervalued at the time but now trades around $94,600with the stage set for a Big BTC comeback after recent price drop.
However, Howells' ex-partner mistakenly deleted the hard drive containing his private keys in 2013, leaving the assets inaccessible. Since then, he has sought legal action to get permission to dig up the Newport landfill. He even offered a portion of the recovered Bitcoin to the local council.
James Howells Loses 12-Year Legal Battle
Although Howells made several requests and forwarded his proposal for excavation, Newport City Council rejected his appeals citing logistical and environmental concerns. The final blow came when Commercial Circuit Judge Keyser dismissed the case because of “no reasonable prospect” of success. He said that the investigation was looking for a needle in a haystack and it simply wasn't possible.
“Anything that goes into the landfill goes into the council's ownership,” said the judge.
Howells expressed his frustration after losing his 12-year legal battle, claiming that the authorities had not properly considered his case. However, he admitted that the court confirmed his ownership of the Bitcoin. Now, it is left to explore other options such as tokenization to monetize its digital assets.
The Howells case is a cautionary tale for global crypto investors. It shows the importance of storing digital resources securely. Cryptocurrencies are different from traditional financial systems and require private keys for access. Losing these keys could result in the permanent loss of the asset.
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