Waste Management Expert: UK Man's Chance of Recovering $6.69 Billion in Bitcoin Almost Zero

BlockBeats News, February 25th, according to The Block, IT engineer James Howells from Newport accidentally discarded a hard drive containing $6.69 billion worth of Bitcoin. Despite his attempts to access the landfill site through legal means or buy the site outright, a UK waste management expert has questioned the feasibility of recovery, claiming that the chance of finding the lost hard drive and recovering $6.69 billion worth of Bitcoin is almost zero.

Howells, a computer engineer from Newport, South Wales, believes his ex-wife mistakenly threw away the hard drive containing the Bitcoin wallet in 2013 and has taken legal action to try to access the local landfill site or demand compensation of £495 million ($609 million) from the Newport City Council.

During a hearing in December, the court heard that Howells, as an early Bitcoin adopter, mined over 7,500 bitcoins in 2009 when the value of Bitcoin was very low. However, on January 9th, a judge dismissed the case, stating that due to the lengthy time that had passed, the grounds for the lawsuit were insufficient, and "the likelihood of success if the case were to proceed is almost zero." A UK commercial waste company stated that even if Howells managed to access the site, the probability of him finding the hard drive within the 1.4 million tonnes of garbage in the landfill was only 1 in 9.02 billion.