James Havells from Newport, Wales, claims that in 2013 his girlfriend accidentally threw away a hard drive containing about 7,500 bitcoins. At today’s exchange rate, that’s more than $700 million in dollars.
James Havells from Newport, Wales, claims that in 2013 his girlfriend accidentally threw away a hard drive containing about 7,500 bitcoins. At today’s exchange rate, that’s more than $700 million in dollars.
Havells says he was one of the first Bitcoin enthusiasts and in 2009 «mined» a significant amount of this cryptocurrency. Havells told reporters from the Times that he threw away the disk by accident, confusing it with another one of the same type that he did not need. According to the Welshman, the keyboard of the laptop with which he «mined» Bitcoins was accidentally poured with lemonade. He pulled out the hard drive, which stored the keys to the cryptocurrency.
He also claimed, writes the BBC, that the mistake was actually made by his then-girlfriend, who physically delivered the disc to the landfill. She also claimed that James himself asked her to take out the garbage, which she did.
Havells repeatedly asked Newport City Council to allow him to excavate the disc, but was refused. In 2023, he decided to sue the city council — he demanded that the local council either allow him to excavate the landfill or pay an appropriate amount in compensation. However, the judge decided that there was no real legal prospect for the claim. The British court refused to consider the man’s claim.
Havells promised the local council 10% of the proceeds from the sale of bitcoins if the search was successful, but the defendants' lawyers called this offer an attempt to force officials to finance the excavation.
Reacting to the decision, James said he was «very upset.»
«The fact that the case was closed at the first hearing does not even give me the opportunity to explain my position or the opportunity to seek justice in any shape or form. There was so much that could have been explained during a full trial, and that is exactly what I expected,» he said.
He added that he had «tried to engage with Newport City Council in every way possible for the past 12 years» and was taken as a «kick in the teeth» when he was told he had not made it.
«Don’t think I’m greedy, because I’m ready to share the income. But none of the people in power are ready to talk to me normally,» the Briton complains.
He is confident that he will most likely be able to extract the necessary information from the disk, although its case has probably rusted over the years it has spent in the landfill.
The landfill where Havells' hard drive rests contains a total of over 1.4 million tons of waste. However, the Welshman claims that he has been able to pinpoint the location of the Bitcoin cache with relative precision: there are only 100,000 tons of waste in this area.
«This decision has left me with nothing. Now I have nothing left,» Havells said of the court’s decision. «I have become another victim of the 'great British system of miscarriage of justice.'»
Newport officials explained that, according to the law, the discarded hard drive still became the property of the landfill owners. In addition, as the city hall reminded, environmental regulations prohibit any excavation of garbage.
As dev.ua wrote, the largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin exceeded the $100,000 mark due to increased demand for riskier assets.
Before that, Bitcoin set a new all-time high in the midst of the US presidential election and in the wake of the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump.
