An early Bitcoin miner claims he lost $749 million after his partner accidentally threw a hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoin in a landfill dumpster ten years ago. Indeed, James Howells has asked the city council of Newport Wales if he can dig through the landfill’s trash to try and recover the lost hard drive. So far, he has not been permitted to do so.
The Bitcoin miner has now taken his local city council to court, arguing that Newport must either give him access to the landfill to reclaim his property or settle in damages the alleged value of the drive.
Howell claims to have mined the Bitcoin himself in 2009 after he was drawn to cryptocurrencies during the 2008 financial crisis.
The price of Bitcoin currently sits at an all-time high of $93,000
Howell has gone on to explain that the bitcoins he mined were stored in a private key in his computer, and the drive was placed in a drawer at his residence while he updated his machine. Howell has explained that, in 2013, he placed the drive in a plastic bag, which his former partner then took straight to the landfill and placed in a waste container.
He told Fortune publication that this is an problem he can’t just get over and labeled the issue a “treasure hunt,” especially with Bitcoin prices rising seemingly every day.
Indeed, the bitcoin on the drive is worth almost $749 million. This fortune has prompted Howell to offer the city of Newport 25 percent of the value on the drive to spend on community projects if he is allowed to retrieve it.
The former Bitcoin miner claims that his requests to dig through the landfill have been rejected ten times thus far.
In the early days of Bitcoin, it was so inexpensive to mine that several people used their computers to do so.
James Howells, a British engineer, successfully mined 8000 bitcoins and stored them on a hard drive.
In August 2013, he accidentally disposed of the hard drive. pic.twitter.com/JPwhasD9Bs
— Edge 🆓 (@EdgeWallet) November 21, 2024
Howell threatens to sue Newport for not letting him dig through the landfill for the bitcoin
The constant rejection from the city not only prompted Howell to lower his offering to 10 percent of the drive’s value but also caused him to potentially sue the city of Newport for half a billion pounds.
Howell revealed that his legal team will present his case to a court in Cardiff, arguing that Howell has the intellectual and general property rights of the drive because he mined the bitcoin and did not hand the drive willingly to the city’s dump.
A spokesman of the city of Newport also talked to Fortune about this case. He told the publication that despite several requests to dig since 2013, excavation for the bitcoin-full hard drive is simply not possible under the city’s environmental permit.
He explained to the publication that digging for the hard drive would cause tremendous damage to the environment surrounding the area and that the city council is the only entity allowed to carry out operations in the landfill.
Additionally, the city’s spokesman also said that Howell’s claim has no real limit, and the city will “vigorously resist it.”