this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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Summary

A UK judge has dismissed James Howells' legal attempt to excavate a Newport landfill to recover a hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoins, now valued at $765 million.

The court ruled against Howells due to environmental risks, ownership laws favoring the landfill authority, and a statute of limitations barring the claim.

Howells accidentally disposed of the drive in 2013, sparking his long battle to retrieve it.

He criticized the decision as unjust, while the council maintained excavation would endanger public health and breach regulations.

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[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 91 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Howells, did not accidentally dispose of it.

His Ex tossed it out with the rest of his junk.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 64 points 6 days ago (2 children)

And if Howells had followed common self custody advice, he'd have had his seed phrase written down somewhere safe so he could recover his wallet and BTC to any other hard drive.

[–] lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 65 points 6 days ago (1 children)

He lost the coins in 2013. So, he probably got them earlier than 2013.

Seed phrases were not originally part of Bitcoin. They came with Bitcoin improvement proposal 39 in 2013.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki

Back then, the options were more limited. But there were options, e.g. making a backup, writing down the private key on paper, ...

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 7 points 6 days ago

Still backup your wallet file every 100 transactions.

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 22 points 6 days ago (1 children)

that too.

Basically.... I'm surprised it took this long for the courts to tell him "Don't be stupid next time, 'kay?" in that tone of voice people usually reserve for small children and puppies.

that's one hell of an idiot tax, though.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Similar shit happened to a lot of us, and back then there were no seed phrases. Only wallet files

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 days ago

Yup, I still have a few bitcoins from like 2010 that died with an old hdd.

[–] ThomasCrappersGhost@feddit.uk 8 points 5 days ago

If I had 500k (Value when it was chucked) in my possession, I’d be very fucking careful with it.

[–] Mickey7@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago

Your comment reminds me of this Netflix documentary.