A UK High Court judge has dismissed a man's attempt to sue Newport council over a long-lost hard drive containing Bitcoin, which should be the full stop on a rather farcical saga that's been running for years. James Howells is a computer engineer who got in on Bitcoin early and mined approximately 7,500 Bitcoin from 2009. Then he forgot about it, and his former partner dumped the hard drive containing the Bitcoin wallet in 2013.
Oops! With Bitcoin's price having risen spectacularly since those days, it is estimated that the hard drive now contains $598 million worth of Bitcoin, with Howells claiming it could be worth as much as $1 billion next year.
