Judge Ends One Man’s 11-Year Quest to Recover $765 Million in Bitcoin by Digging Up a Landfill

image via WIRED

January 13, 2025, 8:25 PM

• •A British judge has ruled against a man who wants to excavate a landfill where he says a hard drive with access to thousands of bitcoins was mistakenly dumped over 11 years ago.
• •James Howells has been hoping to recover a laptop hard drive that he says contains the private key for cryptocurrency which he says he mined in 2009.
• •The judge found no “reasonable grounds for bringing this case,” saying it has “no realistic prospect of succeeding if it went to trial and that there is no other compelling reason why it should be disposed of at trial.”

A British judge has ruled against a man who wants to excavate a landfill where he says a hard drive with access to thousands of bitcoins was mistakenly dumped over 11 years ago.

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