A judge has rejected a British man's claim to access a landfill site in search of his £598m bitcoin hard drive
A judge has rejected a claim by James Howells, who sought access to a landfill site in Newport or £495 million compensation for a lost bitcoin hard drive.
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Howells claimed his ex-partner accidentally threw away the disc in 2013 and it is now worth around £598 million. Judge Keyser KC said there was no reasonable basis for the claim and no realistic prospect of it succeeding. Howells expressed disappointment at the judgement, saying he had tried to engage with Newport City Council for the past 12 years but was then told he had run out of time.
Newport council had argued that the hard drive became their property when it went into landfill and that environmental permits prohibited any attempted excavation. Howells offered the council a share of the bitcoins if they were found, but this did not change the court's decision.
Source: BBC
