Wales Man Loses Appeal to Dig Out Hard Drive Holding $676 Million in Bitcoin

The UK Court of Appeals has rejected the request of a Wales man to dig up a landfill, where he believes that his hard drive was dumped with $ 676 million to Bitcoin more than ten years ago.

James Howells posted Friday on LinkedIn a screenshot of the decision of the Court of Appeal, which is final. The software engineer, who mined the lost bitcoin in 2009, has led a long legal battle To gain access to the landfill where he believes that his tokens can be buried, and he even has considered to buy the waste site.

But after he has exhausted all his legal use options by the British legal system, Howells is now planning to bring his case to the European courts of human rights.

“The large British injustice is striking again … Moral of the story: the state always protects the state,” Howells wrote in his LinkedIn -post. “Next stop: Evir.”

Howells lost his hard disk with the keys to 8,000 Bitcoin in 2013, when his former partner threw the device away. The price of Bitcoin peaked that year at around $ 1,130, Coingecko facts Shows.

Since then, however, the value of those thrown tokens has grown astronomically. Bitcoin traded at $ 84,500 from the publication time, or more than 7000% higher than the highest price in 2013.

Howells is one of the many early Bitcoin believers whose interests have become worth a life-changing fortune. But his case also underlines a common reality for many crypto holders – the difficulties in saving their own cryptocurrencies.

In a letter to Howells, RT. Hon. Lord Justice Nugee from the UK Court of Appeals said that he rejected the profession of the bitcoin holder because it had no ‘real prospect of success’.

Howells refuted the judge’s argument in a Friday statement, with which he shared Decrypt.

“The British establishment wants to wipe this under the carpet, and I will not let them,” he said. “It will not disappear – it doesn’t matter how long it takes!”

Although Howells implied that he has a lot of time to fight his case, the time is to dig up his hard drive.

A city council that supervises the Welsh pump site is expected to close the site, which is approaching the maximum capacity, in the financial year 2025-26, according to the Council’s draft budget.