James Howells Sues Council Over $760 Million Bitcoin Fortune as Ex Admits to Throwing Wallet Away
News Publisher Dec 16, 2024 12:16
As much as cold wallets are considered the safest form of crypto storage, there are still risks attached to them. One of the more obvious ones is that if you lose your physical wallet, there is no getting the tokens back.
As much as cold wallets are considered the safest form of crypto storage, there are still risks attached to them. One of the more obvious ones is that if you lose your physical wallet, there is no getting the tokens back. This is a lesson that a British man named James Howells has had to learn in the worst way.
Howells is currently suing the Newport Council for denying his request to excavate a landfill in search of his crypto wallet that has been missing for years.
Bitcoin Through the Years
Howells’ crypto wallet first went missing in X, and since then, Bitcoin’s progress has been nothing short of remarkable. This year alone, it was approved for a spot ETF in the United States and crossed the $100,000 price point.
It has also become more widely used in a host of industries such as gambling. While fiat was the most popular way to place wagers, crypto has become immensely popular in the last few years. A lot of this boils down to the extra profit that players can make if their tokens increase in value. Then there is the issue of privacy; gambling on a traditional casino is quite demanding in terms of personal details; customers have to provide their government name, ID, and other sensitive details.
But when using crypto casinos, many can bypass their requirement by simply connecting their crypto accounts. As Alexander Reed says, casinos with no account requirements are very popular these days and this has pushed Bitcoin further into the limelight.
The increased relevance of crypto only makes Howells’ case more depressing as the value of the crypto stash lost only goes up each year.
Howells’ Quest
This saga began back in 2009 when he mined several Bitcoin tokens, then worth less than $1 per unit. These were all stored in his hardware wallet and in 2013, he mistakenly tossed the wallet with some old computer parts. He told his then-girlfriend Halfina Eddy-Evans to toss out the items and she was more than happy to as she was tired of hearing about them.
It wasn’t until the hardware wallet ended up in landfill that Howells realized what he’d done; the tokens are now worth hundreds of millions of dollars!
He decided to scour the landfill until he found the tokens but ran into an issue with the Newport Council, which denied him permission to search the area. Howells has gone as far as offering the council 10% of the money, worth tens of millions of dollars, but they haven’t budged.
In response, he has sued the council in a High Court and now, a judge is deliberating who to side with. His team says that he will bring in experts to find the hard drive while the council says that the exercise is pointless and he has no case. As the story unravels, it remains one of the most potent reminders of the importance of crypto wallet safety.
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