Welsh man James Howells is pretty popular in the crypto community, but in a way that people point and laugh at him, rather than actually popular. His story begins in 2009 when he mined 8,000 Bitcoins, back when it was really easy and the crypto itself was a largely worthless novelty back then, and stuck them on a hard drive. At some point in the next few years after that he carelessly tossed the drive in the garbage, only realizing his mistake in 2013 when the value of that cache hit $7.5 million, beginning his long quest to retrieve the drive from a landfill in the town of Newport.

That quest ended last week when, after literally over a decade of refusing various proposals to allow Howells to conduct a search and retrieve the drive now valued at over $600 million, the BBC reports the UK's High Court tossed the extremely unlucky son of a bitch's lawsuit for roughly same amount against the Newport City Council. "This ruling has taken everything from me and left me with nothing. It's the great British injustice system striking again," Howells told the BBC.

"The case being struck out at the earliest hearing doesn't even give me the opportunity to explain myself or an opportunity for justice in any shape or form. There was so much more that could have been explained in a full trial and that's what I was expecting," he said, adding he had "been trying to engage with Newport City Council in every way which is humanly possible for the past 12 years," offering them up to a quarter of the haul should they be able to find the drive. To Howells, being told he was out of time felt like "a kick in the teeth. It's not about greed, I'm happy to share the proceeds but nobody in a position of power will have a decent conversation with me."

Probably not any solace, but it's likely that even if Howells was able to find the drive it's likely to be far too damaged and corroded to retrieve the Bitcoin data from its storage.