The Story Of The World’s Most Valuable Hard Disk

The saga of the $770 million Bitcoin hard drive started in 2009, when James Howells says he successfully mined 8,000 BTC

A UK judge has dismissed a case brought by a crypto miner who claimed to have lost a hard drive containing $770 million worth of Bitcoin in a landfill over a decade ago.

James Howell’s legal battle to recover the hard drive ended after Judge Keyser KC ruled that there were no “reasonable grounds” for filing the claim and “no realistic prospect” of succeeding at a full trial.

Howell had offered a share of the Bitcoin if the hard disk was found.

The crypto miner had claimed to have successfully mined 8,000 BTC in 2009. Like many other early adopters of the cryptocurrency, Howell had no idea that Bitcoin’s price would reach extraordinary heights.

In 2013, Howell’s partner accidentally threw away the hard disk, and at that time, BTC was trading at $13. Since then, it’s skyrocketed and now stands at $94,507.

On October 11, the council said that it had informed Howells “multiple times that excavation is not possible.” The council referred to the “huge negative environmental impact on the surrounding area.”

Following the council’s rejection, Howells accused it of breaching environmental regulations. He claimed to possess over “100 independently verified pieces of evidence” that would support his allegations.

Howells claimed the council had been violating environmental policies “by leeching arsenic, asbestos, ammonium nitrate, and methane gases into the local environment.”

The council also claimed that the hard drive became its property once it reached the landfill. James Goudie KC, for the council, said that the miner’s offer to donate 10% of Bitcoin to the local community was tempting the council to “play fast and loose” by “signing up for a share of the action.”