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By Jasmine Laws
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A man from the U.K. has been fighting to get back a hard drive containing $800 million worth of bitcoin after it was accidentally thrown into a landfill, The Guardian has reported.
For more than a decade, James Howells, a 39-year-old from Newport in South Wales, has been trying to get back his hard drive holding 8,000 bitcoins after it was mistakenly thrown into the bin by his former partner, local outlet Wales Online reported.
On Tuesday, a court at the Cardiff Civil and Family Justice Centre listened to Howells and his legal team's proposal of a dig costing almost $13 million to find the hard drive, the outlet added.
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Bitcoin's value passed $100,000 on Wednesday, having increased by more than $30,000 since Donald Trump was elected as the next U.S. president, which marks the highest price the cryptocurrency has been at since it was launched more than a decade ago, according to Business Insider.
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This means that Howells' hard drive is even more valuable than it was previously, now worth around $800 million.
Newsweek has contacted Newport City Council and the office of Dean Armstrong, the lawyer representing Howells.
While sorting out his office in 2013, Howells says he left the hard drive in a black bag in the hallway and his partner at the time took it with her to the council's Docksway rubbish site, The Guardian reported.
Ever since, he has been asking to get the hard drive back, but Newport City Council has reportedly turned him down every time, according to Wales Online.
Earlier this week, Howells and his legal team argued that they would not need to search for the hard drive like a "needle in a haystack" as they knew the small patch of the rubbish site it would be in, according to The Guardian.
They argued that they instead had a "finely tuned" plan and even that they would be happy to share the money with the council.
However, the court in Cardiff was allegedly seeking to strike out Howells' case before it could reach a trial in the High Court.
Per The Guardian report, James Goudie KC, a representative for the council, said in court that Howells had no legal claim to the hard drive anymore as "anything that goes into the landfill goes into the council's ownership."
Goudie added that Howells' offer to share some of the bitcoin with Newport City Council was a bribe because he was "trying to buy something the council is not in a position to sell."
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