• After listening to the decide's ruling, Mr Howells mentioned: “Britain's nice justice system is being dealt one other blow.”
• Howells misplaced his exhausting drive in 2013 when he by chance threw it off the tip.
• He says he has been making an attempt to work with Newport Metropolis Council for 12 years to get his exhausting drive again, however has been “largely ignored.”

James Howells has misplaced a lawsuit to recuperate lacking Bitcoin exhausting drives from a Welsh landfill, which at the moment are price round $740 million.

Howells by chance threw away a tough drive containing 8,000 Bitcoins whereas cleansing out homes in 2013. On the time, he had two exhausting drives of the identical dimension. One was empty and the opposite contained Bitcoin.

He by chance put the bitcoins in a black trash bag, and his then-girlfriend took them away. On the time of his loss, his property, which he mined in 2009, had been price about $1.3 million.

Howells filed a lawsuit in October searching for $646 million in damages from the Newport Metropolis Council, alleging he was denied entry to the landfill over environmental considerations.

Now, the BBC studies that Welsh Circuit Business Choose Choose Kaiser KC has dismissed Howells' case, saying there have been no “affordable grounds” for her to succeed at a full trial.

12 years of battle

Mr Howells mentioned he was “deeply disturbed” by the choice, including: “Britain's nice justice system has suffered yet one more blow.”

For the previous 12 years, Howells mentioned he has been making an attempt to work with Newport Metropolis Council to recuperate misplaced exhausting drives, however has been “largely ignored.”

Court docket filings say Howell's exhausting drive is situated in Cell 2 of Space 2 of the Doxway Landfill. However regardless of guarantees to soundly excavate the Newport website and modernize the landfill, the Metropolis Council rejected Howells' request to excavate, citing “environmental considerations.”

Mr Howells' legal professionals declare the council “merely ignored” that 10% of Bitcoin might deliver “big funding that’s desperately wanted in native communities.”

The decide's ruling got here as Bitcoin soared above $100,000 for the primary time in early December, rising to an all-time excessive of greater than $108,000.