長達十年的價值 7.6 億美元硬碟爭奪戰已經結束

英國一家法院裁定 James Howells 不能挖掘一個 35 萬噸的市政垃圾掩埋場，他稱該垃圾掩埋場內有一個硬碟，其中包含他遺失已久的比特幣私鑰。

A decade-long legal battle over a hard drive that a man claims contains the private keys to his long-lost stash of Bitcoin has come to an end after a UK court ruled that he cannot excavate a 350,000 tonne municipal landfill to find it.

一名男子聲稱硬碟中包含他丟失已久的比特幣私鑰，圍繞該硬碟長達十年的法律糾紛已經結束，英國法院裁定他無法挖掘 35 萬噸的市政垃圾掩埋場來找到它。

James Howells, a man living in the Welsh town of Newport, amassed the 8,000 Bitcoin — now worth about $760 million — when he started mining the cryptocurrency in early 2009.

居住在威爾斯紐波特鎮的詹姆斯·豪厄爾斯 (James Howells) 在 2009 年初開始開採加密貨幣時積累了 8,000 個比特幣，目前價值約 7.6 億美元。

But he kept the private keys needed to access his digital wallet on a hard drive, and, after a series of unfortunate events, it ended up in the Newport landfill in 2013.

但他將存取數位錢包所需的私鑰保存在硬碟上，經過一系列不幸事件後，它最終於 2013 年被扔進了紐波特垃圾掩埋場。

He has been fighting the town for permission to excavate the landfill and recover the hard drive ever since.

從那時起，他一直在與鎮政府爭取許可挖掘垃圾掩埋場並回收硬碟。

But on Friday, High Court judge Keyser KC dismissed Howells’ lawsuit before it could head to trial, arguing the only relevant question was who owned the hard drive.

但在周五，高等法院法官 Keyser KC 在進入審判之前駁回了 Howells 的訴訟，認為唯一相關的問題是誰擁有硬碟。

And the town owns the hard drive, the judge ruled.

法官裁定，該硬碟歸該鎮所有。

A billion-dollar mistake?

一個價值十億美元的錯誤？

Howells began mining Bitcoin in February 2009, just weeks after it first launched.

Howells 於 2009 年 2 月開始開採比特幣，即比特幣首次推出幾週後。

He quickly accumulated 8,000 Bitcoin, but it wouldn’t be worth much until 2013, when the cryptocurrency shot to $100 per token, then, briefly, $1,000 per token.

他很快就累積了 8,000 枚比特幣，但直到 2013 年，比特幣才值多少錢，當時加密貨幣的價格飆升至每枚 100 美元，然後短暫升至每枚 1,000 美元。

A hard drive containing the private keys to his Bitcoin wallet — akin to an account password — had been sitting in a drawer in his home office the past three years.

在過去三年裡，包含他的比特幣錢包私鑰（類似帳戶密碼）的硬碟一直放在他家庭辦公室的抽屜裡。

That autumn, he went looking for it, only to realize he had mistakenly put it in a garbage bag his partner had brought to the dump in August.

那年秋天，他去尋找它，卻發現自己錯誤地把它放進了他的伙伴八月份帶到垃圾場的垃圾袋裡。

By mid-2015, Bitcoin had dropped under $250 per token, and Howells’ stash was worth $2 million. By early 2017, however, it was again worth $1,000 per token, or about $8 million in Bitcoin he couldn’t access.

到 2015 年中期，比特幣價格已跌至每枚 250 美元以下，豪厄爾斯的收藏價值 200 萬美元。然而，到 2017 年初，每個代幣的價值再次達到 1,000 美元，或說他無法訪問的比特幣價值約為 800 萬美元。

By the end of that year, the value of the stash swelled to more than $100 million.

到當年年底，這些藏品的價值已超過 1 億美元。

By the end of 2021, it was half a billion. At Bitcoin’s peak in December, it would have been worth more than $860 million.

到 2021 年底，這一數字已達到 5 億。比特幣在 12 月達到頂峰時，價值將超過 8.6 億美元。

And some are betting it will reach far higher.

有些人押注它會達到更高的水平。

All the while, Howells lost both his job maintaining emergency response systems for various Welsh communities as well as his relationship to his longtime partner.

同時，豪厄爾斯失去了維護威爾斯各個社區緊急應變系統的工作，也失去了與長期合作夥伴的關係。

In an interview with The New Yorker, he said he may have subconsciously blamed her for the lost fortune.

他在接受《紐約客》採訪時表示，他可能下意識地將損失的財富歸咎於她。

But he also put together a plan to retrieve the Bitcoin: in exchange for a cut of the Bitcoin, investors would help him pay for companies “that could perform targeted landfill removals,” The New Yorker reported.

但他也制定了一項收回比特幣的計畫：根據《紐約客》報道，投資者將幫助他向「可以進行有針對性的垃圾掩埋場清除」的公司付款，以換取比特幣的分成。

He retained a retired manager of the landfill as an advisor. He even offered Newport a cut of the proceeds if the excavation was successful.

他聘請了一位退休的垃圾掩埋場經理作為顧問。如果挖掘成功，他甚至向紐波特提出了一定的收益分成。

A prize-winning novel

得獎小說

But town officials were unmoved, arguing that excavating a 350,000 tonne landfill could become an environmental hazard for landfill employees and townspeople, among other issues.

但鎮官員不為所動，認為挖掘一個 35 萬噸垃圾掩埋場可能會對垃圾掩埋場員工和城鎮居民造成環境危害等問題。

In 2024, he sued the town, asking for the hard drive, permission to look for the hard drive, or money equal to the value of the Bitcoin that could be accessed with the private keys.

2024 年，他起訴該鎮，要求提供硬碟、尋找硬碟的許可，或與可以使用私鑰存取的比特幣等值的金錢。

During a hearing, one of Howells’ attorneys implied the town effectively had his Bitcoin, an argument the judge rejected.

在一次聽證會上，豪厄爾斯的一位律師暗示該鎮實際上擁有他的比特幣，但法官駁回了這一論點。

“If a copy of the novel that won the Booker Prize in 2024 were thrown into the landfill, the author's copyright would not go with it,” the judge wrote.

法官寫道：“如果將 2024 年獲得布克獎的小說扔進垃圾掩埋場，作者的版權也不會隨之消失。”

The private keys weren’t directly stored on the hard drive either.

私鑰也沒有直接儲存在硬碟上。

“The hard drive contains not the private key but a record of the private key,” the judge wrote.

「硬碟中不包含私鑰，而是包含私鑰的記錄，」法官寫道。

“The position is no different in principle from what it would be if the record of the private key had been written on a piece of paper that had been put into the landfill.”

“原則上，這種情況與私鑰記錄寫在一張被扔進垃圾掩埋場的紙上沒有什麼不同。”

And the law states that anything delivered to the dump becomes its property, without reservations.

法律規定，任何運送到垃圾場的東西都成為其財產，毫無保留。

“The only thing that went into the landfill was the hard drive,” the judge wrote.

「唯一進入垃圾掩埋場的是硬碟，」法官寫道。

Aleks Gilbert is a DeFi correspondent based in New York. He can be reached at aleks@dlnews.com.

Aleks Gilbert 是駐紐約的 DeFi 記者。您可以透過 aleks@dlnews.com 聯繫他。