PANews reported on January 9 that according to Cointelegraph, the legal action of James Howells, an IT engineer in Newport, UK, to recover a hard drive containing more than 7,700 bitcoins was dismissed. The hard drive was mistakenly discarded in a landfill in 2013. Due to environmental license restrictions, the Newport City Council prohibited Howells from entering the landfill for excavation.

Welsh Circuit Commercial Judge Keyser ruled the case had "no realistic prospect of success" at a full trial. Since 2013, Howells has repeatedly sought access to the landfill and offered a share of the bitcoin proceeds, but all have been rejected.