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A British judge has ruled against a man who wants to dig up a landfill where he says a hard drive with access to thousands of bitcoins was mistakenly dumped 11 years ago.
Since 2013, James Howells has been hoping to recover a laptop hard drive that he says contains private keys to cryptocurrency he says he mined in 2009. Ars wrote about it at the time, Noting The value of one bitcoin just crossed $1,000, resulting in 7,500 bitcoins worth $7.5 million.
The alleged number of bitcoins has changed slightly, with Howells now saying he lost 8,000 bitcoins. Bitcoin price Exceeds $100,000 Last month and up to last Friday was $95,636, or $765 million for 8,000 bitcoins.
High Court Justice KC issued the wire rule Last week, with the accused side Howells v Newport City Council. The judge ruled that Howells had no realistic chance of success at trial. Howells sought “an order that the defendant either provide the hard drive or allow his team of experts to dig the landfill to find it, and (in the alternative) compensation equal to the value of the bitcoins he can no longer access.”
Landfill authorities own the waste
The council said digging up the landfill site would allow harmful substances to escape into the environment, endangering residents of “potentially serious risks that raise public health problems and environmental concerns”, the ruling said.
The judge found “no compelling reason to bring this case,” saying “if it goes to trial, it has no realistic prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason to settle it at trial.” He granted summary judgment for defendant dismissing the claim.
The judgment cited the Pollution Control Act, 1974, which states that “something supplied to the authority by any other person while using the facilities shall belong to the authority and action may be taken accordingly.” Howells “submitted that section 14(6)(c) only says that something so supplied shall belong to the authority but it does not say that it shall not belong to its former owner,” the judgment said. The judge disagreed, writing that “the words “belonging to the authority” are unqualified and uncontrollable.”
The judge found no reason to determine that the defendant’s retention of the hard drive was “insensitive” under the law. “In my view there would be no realistic prospect of a finding that the defendant’s retention of the hard drive was unwarranted. The defendant was not holding it for profit or because he wanted it. It was holding it because it was buried in the landfill,” the judgment said.
Statute of limitations
The claim is also barred by the six-year statute of limitations because Howells “knew the subject matter of his claim by November 2013 but did not commence proceedings until May 2024,” the ruling said.
The judge did not need to rule on whether Bitcoin actually had access to the hard drive, stating that “the only relevant issues in this case are the ownership and right of access to the hard drive.” Howells sought access to the landfill site in Newport, Wales in November 2013, but was denied by local officials. He says the hard drive is 2½ inches in size and contains a wallet.dat file that contains a private key that can enable access to bitcoins.
The city council said the excavation would breach NRW (Natural Resources Body for Wales) license conditions, cause health and safety risks to workers, risk damage to ground movement during or after excavation and prevent the council from “excavating”. ) its statutory waste disposal functions while excavating the site.
