- A UK judge ruled against a man who was hoping to retrieve a Bitcoin-laden hard drive from a city dump. That wallet today, the owner says, is worth nearly $750 million and could be worth $1 billion next year. The city, though, says the hard drive is now its property.
For the past 12 years, James Howells has been trying to get officials in the British city of Newport to let him explore the city landfill in hopes of finding an old hard drive that he says contains nearly $750 million worth of Bitcoin.
On Thursday, a judge squashed those garbage-diving dreams, striking down the suit and ruling Howells had “no realistic prospect of succeeding” in his effort if the case were to continue.
The whole situation started in the summer of 2013, when Howells accidentally put a laptop that contained his Bitcoin wallet (with 7,500 Bitcoins) in a black bag in the hall of his house. His partner at the time assumed the bag was filled with trash and disposed of it.
At the time, the price of a single Bitcoin was in the neighborhood of $100. Today, that price stands at over $93,000. In the past day alone, the value has jumped by more than $725 per bitcoin.
Howells has offered to split the value of the Bitcoin in the wallet with the city and pay for the excavation himself, but officials have said a search is impossible due to environmental permits – and that the hard drive became city property as soon as it entered the landfill.
The judge ruled that the city council’s argument that it owned the hard drive was convincing and provided a “complete answer” to the claim, so taking the case to court would not be a good use of anyone’s time.
“I consider that the particulars of the claim do not show any reasonable grounds for bringing this case,” the ruling read. “I also consider that the claim would have no realistic prospect of succeeding if it went to trial and that there is no other compelling reason why it should be disposed of at trial.”
Howells says he plans to take the case to the UK supreme court.
