In a dramatic turn of events, a Welsh man has sued Newport Council to recover for 8000 lost Bitcoins from a decade ago. The 39-year-old IT professional has claimed damage of $646 million for losing the Bitcoin his hard drive was accidentally disposed of in a recycling centre back in 2013, underlining the importance of long-term secure storage of digital assets.
The 8000 Bitcoin that James Howells mined during the early days of cryptocurrency were now worth a hefty sum as their value has skyrocketed reaching an all-time high of $73,737 earlier this year. Back then it was possible to mine cryptocurrencies without fancy equipment and at a minimal cost. At present, Howells’ lost Bitcoin will fetch around $535 million as it has of value $66900 on October 15, 2024.
Howells revealed he filed the lawsuit as a last resort to get compensation after failed negotiations with the Council to recover the device from the Docksway landfill. The authorities are not allowing an excavation on the site where the complainant thinks his hard drive ended up. The 39-year-old has gathered all the resources for it including a team of experts who will do the $13 million excavation. He even offered to give the local community 10% of the lost Bitcoin value but the authorities are not giving him permission for the excavation.
Howells' legal team argues that the hard drive is likely located in "Cell 2 – Area 2" of the landfill, with experts estimating an 80% chance of data retrieval. They propose an excavation period of 18 to 36 months, followed by a year of environmental remediation. The team also claims they can safely excavate the site using AI assistance and have pledged to help modernize the landfill, which has reportedly violated its permit due to excessive levels of hazardous waste since 2020.
While the Newport Council says that they legally own the device now as it has been discarded, Howells argues that he never wanted to dispose of it in the first place. The Council even prohibited an excavation under its purview where it can do the environmental monitoring.
Earlier in 2013, a similar incident came to the surface when a Norwegian man found out that the Bitcoin he mined in 2009 for $27 is now worth millions. However, Kristoffer Koch didn’t lose access to the 5000 Bitcoin worth $334 million now. In 2021, another case sprang up where a German programmer lost access to his hard drive with 7002 Bitcoins worth $468 million as he forgot the password to access the drive.
As per the 2020 Crypto Crime Report by Chaianalysis, some 3.7 million Bitcoin remain lost due to storage device issues including misplaced hard drives and forgotten passwords. This amounts to a loss of over $247 billion in terms of today’s prices. This highlights how critical secure storage solutions are for cryptocurrency holdings. As digital assets continue to gain mainstream adoption, the need for robust backup and recovery methods becomes increasingly apparent.