Man who lost £500 million bitcoin fortune to bin day is fighting for a chance to find it in court, after more than 10 years in a landfill
James Howells is someone we've reported on a few times in the past. Back in 2013, Howells had a significant collection of 7,500 bitcoin stored on a hard drive. That collection ended up in the trash and subsequently taken to a local landfill. For over 10 years it's sat somewhere in the midst of that pile of waste—now Howells is taking his local authority to court to get it back.
Even at the time of the bitcoin's disposal it was worth a pretty penny—today it's worth around £500 million.
That's a sum of cash that would be undeniably difficult to just let go of. Though the promise of such a booty has also become a powerful tool in earning Howells help from various legal teams and data recovery engineers—reportedly working pro bono for a slice of the bitcoin millions.
The case is currently being fought at Cardiff civil and family court, which is dealing with Newport City Council's bid to ditch the case before it reaches a full trial. Howells wants to take the case to court to retrieve what he believes is still his legal property.
James Goudie KC representing the authority suggests (via The Guardian): «Anything that goes into the landfill goes into the council’s ownership.»
Meanwhile, Dean Armstrong KC representing Howells said (via the BBC): «we seek, plainly and candidly, a declaration of rights over the ownership of the bitcoin.»
Armstrong also noted the search would be a «precise excavation» of a «small area which we have been able to identify.»
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There's a lot of, probably fair, references to 'needles in haystacks'. Though Armstrong also argues they've whittled down the haystack to a much smaller haystack and would be able to identify a smaller location where they believed the drive to be.
Ahead of the case, a Newport City Council spokesperson said (via South Wales Argus): «The council has told Mr. Howells multiple times that excavation is not possible under our
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