In 2013 The British IT specialist James Howells somehow conspired to throw a challenging disk containing 7500 Bitcoins on a urban screenshot. At that time it was worth less than $ 1 million. Now the same Stash Bitcoin is worth about 750 million dollars, and Howells wants to buy the entire website of the landfill.
Of course, it’s about recovering the disk. Perhaps, of course, Howells itself does not have resources for the purchase of a landfill from the Local Government Council in Newport in Wales, which currently has it.
Howells says He “would potentially be interested in buying the website of the landfill” as it is “and discussed this option with investment partners and this is something that is very on the table.”
In November 2013, Howells realized that his mistake earned earlier this summer. Since then, he has been fighting for access to the landfill page to search for a disk.
Howells escalated his efforts to regain their pursuit in 2023, threatens that he would sue for half a billion dollars of compensation. Last year, the attempt forced the court case to refuse access to the site.
At the end of last year at the preliminary court hearingHowells’s lawyers argued that the location of the drive was narrowed, so a diminutive part of the place and recovery would not require a universal excavation.
However, lawyers from the Newport Council said that Howells did not have a legal claim and that “everything that goes to the dump belongs to the ownership of the council.” In addition, the Council claims that “excavations are not possible under our environment and that this kind of work would have a huge negative impact on the environment on the area.”
In this case, the judge on the side of the council and the Howells claim was dismissed. But with such a lot of money, which potentially threatened at the stake, perhaps it is not surprising that Howells does not give up.
In particular, it seems that the history of Howells has drifted over the years. Early media reports, including the one related above quoting Howell, explaining how he rejected the ride after cleaning the office. “Do you know when you put something in the basket in your head, tell yourself” This is a bad idea “? I really had it, “he said in 2013.
The newer reports shifted the narrative, says that Howells “put” a ride in a black plastic bag in the hall of his house, just so that his partner would mistake the trash bag and get rid of her.
This change of narrative may have legal consequences. Perhaps if Howell can show that the disk was never to conjure up, he will facilitate his case. For now, it was not, because the courts will not hear his affairs in full, regardless of their original intentions with pursuit.
In the meantime, the Newport Council does not seem interested in selling the Howll website and its alleged investors. Where all this goes from here who knows. But as long as the price of Bitcoin will rise, it certainly will not be the last about this lost digital treasury. Almost one billion dollars allegedly sits at the landfill and it will be very tough to ignore.
