James Howells loses battle to recover $770 million worth of Bitcoin from landfill

James Howell lost his legal battle to recover a hard drive containing $770 million in bitcoin after a UK judge dismissed the case.

The hard drive was accidentally discarded by Howells' former partner more than a decade ago and ended up in a Newport landfill. He Newport Town Hall repeatedly refused to give him access to the landfill, citing restrictions on environmental permits.

Since 2013, Howells has been trying to recover his hard drive and has sued the city to gain access to the site or obtain compensation. But Judge Keyser KC has dismissed the case.

He said there were “no reasonable grounds” for bringing the lawsuit and “no realistic prospect” of succeeding in a full trial.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″ data-dnt=”true” wp_automatic_readability=”8.5606060606061″>

Newport Council succeeds in having a claim dismissed involving the claimant's attempt to recover the hard drive containing the bitcoin key (allegedly valued at over £600 million) accidentally sent to landfill in 2013. https://t.co/7Up3LCgbAI

-James Lee (@jamessflee) <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/jamessflee/status/1877320526839808204?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>January 9, 2025

The crypto miner had also offered a portion of the bitcoin if the hard drive was found.

The story of the most valuable hard drive in the world

The $770 million bitcoin hard drive saga began in 2009, when James Howells says he successfully mined 8,000 btc. Like many other early adopters of cryptocurrency, Howells had no idea that the price of bitcoin would reach extraordinary heights.

In 2013, Howells' partner accidentally dropped the hard drive. At the time, btc was trading at $13. Since then, it has skyrocketed and now stands at $94,507.

On October 11, the council said it had informed Howells “several times that excavation is not possible”. The city council referred to the “enormous negative environmental impact on the surrounding area.”

Following the council's rejection, Howells accused him of violating environmental regulations. He claimed to have more than “100 independently verified pieces of evidence” that would support his accusations.

Howells claimed the council had been breaching environmental policies “by leaking arsenic, asbestos, ammonium nitrate and methane gases into the local environment”.

The city council also claimed that the hard drive became its property once it arrived at the landfill. James Goudie KC, on behalf of the council, said the miner's offer to donate 10% of bitcoin to the local community was tempting the council to “play fast and loose” by “signing up for a piece of the action”.

Related articles