A curious case from the UK’s Newport, Wales shows how easily a cryptocurrency can literally become a lost digital treasure overnight. James Howells threw out by mistake disk containing 8000 bitcoinswhich at the current value corresponds to approx 765 million dollars. Only the court had to end the man’s tireless search.
A lost digital asset lies under a pile of trash
Since 2013, James Howells, the owner of the lost disk containing 8,000 bitcoins, has worked tirelessly to obtain a permit to search the landfill where the disk was allegedly buried. Howells even managed to get the backing of investors who promised to finance the entire project, and he proposed searching the landfill using robots and artificial intelligence. Despite everything, the Newport City Council repeatedly rejected Howells for many years.
According to the magazine Ars Technica councilors argued that disrupting the landfill could cause serious environmental problems, including groundwater contamination and disturbance of local fauna. The landfill contains toxic substances that cannot be safely removed.
But James Howells did not give up and filed a lawsuit last year asking the court to order the city council to allow the excavation. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave the court smiling either. Justice Keyser KC’s ruling relied on the Pollution Control Act of 1974, which all waste in the landfill is the property of the relevant authority. The court also pointed out that the lawsuit was filed after the six-month statute of limitations had expired because Howells had already known about the loss since November 2013.
“The deletion of the case at the next meeting gives me neither the opportunity to give an explanation nor the opportunity to get justice in any form. There was a lot more that could have been explained in a full court case, and I expected that.” said James Howells in response to the court’s decision, continuing: “It’s not about greed, I’m happy to share the proceeds, but no one in a position of power will have a decent conversation with me. It is the great British system of injustice that has struck again.’
How did the disk end up in the landfill in the first place
How could it happen that a disc with such a giant digital treasure ended up in a landfill? Behind everything is human error and unfortunate coincidence. James Howells had two drives at home – one blank and the other containing the key to access 8,000 bitcoins stored in the wallet.dat file. Instead of a blank disc, he accidentally threw the fateful disc in the trash, and before he realized his mistake, his girlfriend at the time took the trash to the landfill.
The chance of finding the disc is practically zero, not only because of the court’s decision, but also because of the enormous amount of waste in the landfill. To date, it contains approximately 350,000 tons of waste, with an additional 50,000 added annually. The Bitcoin disk will probably remain buried forever under hundreds of tons of garbage.
Source: Ars Technica
Source: www.cnews.cz
