Summary
James Howells lost 8,000 Bitcoins worth over £500 million when he accidentally threw away a hard drive containing his private key.
He has been trying to retrieve the hard drive from a Newport landfill for over a decade, but the council has refused to allow him access.
Howells is now suing the council for £495 million in damages.
He can’t really prove it even exists.
The bitcoin? It doesn’t.
Functionally, it doesn’t, and it’s only a function to begin with.
Yeah, the only way to prove it’s his is with that key. That’s kind of the point of crypto in the first place.
Imagine if he gave up the key to prove it only for someone else to already have found the HDD and uses the key.