James Howells has been trying for ten years to find a hard drive that has over $700 million worth of Bitcoin in a landfill.
He took legal action against the local council to get permission to search the site, but a judge dismissed his case before it could go to a full trial.

Howells has been asking the Newport, Wales council for years to let him dig for his hard drive. He even offered to give 10% of the Bitcoin, about $71 million, to the local community if he could search successfully.
In October, Howells sued the city, seeking permission to search the landfill or compensation of £495 million ($607 million). He claimed he had a detailed plan to find the drive and that he had narrowed its location down to a small area.
However, the High Court judge did not agree with Howells’ claims. Newport council had asked the judge to dismiss the case, which he did. The judge stated there were no reasonable grounds for the lawsuit and that it would not likely succeed in court.
The judge explained that Howells’ claims did not provide any solid reasons to pursue the case and that it would not have a realistic chance of winning if it went to trial. He also mentioned that there were no compelling reasons to take the case to trial.
Newport council’s lawyers argued that Howells had no legal right to the hard drive since anything thrown into the landfill becomes the council’s property. The judge accepted this argument.
Howells expressed his disappointment with the decision, calling it a “kick in the teeth.” He felt that the case being dismissed so early denied him a chance to explain himself and seek justice.
The landfill contains over 1.4 million tons of waste, but Howells believes he has narrowed the search area down to about 100,000 tons. He thinks that the Bitcoin on the drive could be worth £1 billion ($1.2 billion) next year.
Howells left his job to focus on finding the drive full-time. He has hired data recovery engineers who are working for free, but there are concerns about whether the data on the drive is still recoverable after being buried for over ten years.
When asked why he doesn’t give up, Howells said he could spend his life working a regular job while thinking about the lost fortune, so he prefers to keep trying to recover it.
For those unfamiliar with the story, in 2013, Howells had two hard drives in a drawer. One he intended to throw away, and the other contained a digital wallet with 7,500 Bitcoin. He accidentally threw away the drive with the crypto, and it ended up in the landfill.
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