A British judge has rejected a Welsh IT worker’s bid to search a landfill for a discarded hard drive containing Bitcoin (BTC) worth over $600 million, ending a 12-year quest to recover the lost cryptocurrency.
According to a new report from the BBC, James Howells lost the device containing 8,000 Bitcoin during a 2013 house cleanup in Newport, Wales, when he mistakenly threw away the wrong hard drive.
The BTC on the hard drive, which Howells mined in 2009 during cryptocurrency’s early days, has skyrocketed in value since then.
Despite offering to share the recovered funds with the local community and presenting detailed environmental safety plans, Howells failed to convince Newport City Council to permit a search of the landfill where the hard drive is believed to be buried.
The council maintained that excavating the site would pose significant environmental hazards, including the potential release of harmful materials. Officials also questioned the likelihood of finding an intact hard drive after years of exposure to the elements.
According to the report, the court’s dismissal cited a lack of reasonable grounds for success in Howells’ case. The ruling marks the end of his efforts to recover what would be one of the largest lost cryptocurrency fortunes in history.
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