Owner of 8K bitcoin lost in landfill threatens to bankrupt local council

[Fivestar4everMVP]

I think the part I highlighted is the funniest joke I've seen in the century, how is this guy hoping to win such a case when it clearly wasn't the fault of the local council that he lost his hard drive containing his 8k bitcoins?,
I personally think this nigga have to calm himself down because clearly, he is allowing the situation to get into his head and that is causing him to overreact unnecessarily, it is time he realized that that hard drive have either rotten and have gone deep into the ground, or the drive has been crush, melted and turned into another piece of metal..

It is rather unfortunate though, i understand that such a situation can be very hard to bear most of the time, and it could cause any body to misbehave under some circumstances, but then, like I have said before, he needs to calm himself down and face the reality, this drive is gone forever and its not the fault of the local council that this happened, he needs to forget about this drive and just move on with his life.   

[m2017]

I've heard this story before (about James Howells losing a hard drive with a lot of bitcoin) about trying to start excavations at the city dump. It turns out that, having failed to achieve success in negotiations with the city council, James decided to take decisive and drastic actions. We stock up on popcorn and wait for the next episode.

The hero of this story is obsessed with the lost bitcoin. Look, he spent 10 years of his life and what result did it lead to? Nothng. Sometimes need to let go of the past, because in pursuit of the past can lose the present. To be honest, I don't expect him to win in court or get any money from the city council. Howells will once again waste time and material resources. The same thing could have happened even if he had been allowed to dig up the dump. The disk might not be found at all, or it might turn out to be unrecoverable.

This is a good example of mind-blowing perseverance and determination, but it is completely unknown where this will lead. Either James will receive the desired wealth, or all his efforts will be in vain and having wasted all his energy trying to grasp the past, he will lose his future.

[kryptqnick]

Is losing a lot of money sad? Yes, of course it is. But it's not like he lost his life savings or money he crucially needed to save a loved one or whatever. The sooner a person lets go in a situation like this, the better. But the article says it's been a decade since the loss, so he's been poisoning his life and the lives of people around him for 10 years, while that time could have been spent on doing something productive, figuring out who you want to be in life etc. By continuing the attempts to get a permission to big through the landfill despite a clear and reasonable position of the local council, he's letting this thing continue to destroy his life.

[DaveF]

How about he finds a place to take all the garbage, and then pays the costs to move the ENTIRE landfill to that location, along with the cleanup of the existing area. He also has to pay for any damage caused buy the move and anything else involved with it.

Once it's in the new location, he can sort though it there on his own time.

-Dave

[ImThour]

I think him lashing out at the city council and threatening to sue them doesn't make bitcoin look good.

So according to you, one man saying shit to their local council in a part of a city and threatening them is going to make Bitcoin overall look bad? Your logic is way shittier than what he's doing.
No one cares about this man and his city's council. Bitcoin is perfectly fine, and can only be good or bad if something happens on the blockchain, not on roads. Understand this for now.

On the topic, the man is delusional, and doesn't deserve those 8K bitcoin back anytime soon.

[stompix]

Lol l thought that guy gave up on his lost bitcoins but I guess he didn't. He has no chance to win that lawsuit and what's even worse is that he is dishonest, suing them for the amount equal to the highest value of his bitcoins, like he would sell them at exactly that time and not before.

He has lost his mind, he plans to bankrupt the whole town because they are not letting him try and waste more money on finding something that for sure is destroyed by now, it's a damn harddisk thrown in a rotting pile of garbage after hundreds of tracked dozers have gone over it, the chances of it being in once piece are slim, the chances of anything being readable are zero, the chances of getting the keys...common!

In news of this style, the normal thing would be to talk about the PC or laptop, but as you say "cold wallet" I don't know exactly what they are referring to.

It was a laptop HDD, something happened to it a while after he stopped mining and he dismantled and sold a few of the pieces but not the HDD, by mistake his girlfriend as the story threw away the bag with the HDD instead of another one. There was no hard wallet or cold wallet and most importantly there is actually no proof he had them in the first place at all on that HDD other than him remembering doing some mining.

The information that he threw the HDD in the trash is incorrect, his partner did it, so for years everyone has been blaming poor James for something he didn't actually do.

Not to mention that he claims she stopped him from mining more in 2009 because of the noise the laptop was making at night. But in the end, he not only lost the coins he lost his family as both his wife and kids left him, and now probably the whole digging plan is the only thing he has left or cares about.

[BlackBoss_]

He has lost his mind, he plans to bankrupt the whole town because they are not letting him try and waste more money on finding something that for sure is destroyed by now, it's a damn harddisk thrown in a rotting pile of garbage after hundreds of tracked dozers have gone over it, the chances of it being in once piece are slim, the chances of anything being readable are zero, the chances of getting the keys...common!

He must pay all cost of the procedure even it is approved but he does not have money to pay cost. His offer is if he find that disk and get the keys, he will have money to pay the cost and local council will be shared a proportion of restored bitcoins.

It is not a good deal because local council does see risk that they will not get anything after all of this. If I am a local council member, I don't accept this offer. They are realistic but the man is not, he lost his mind. Many slim chances multiply with each other and makes his net chance is zero.

[bittraffic]

Hes mad. I doubt the hard drive will still be intact, it will not be recoverable anymore after years of being soggy under the juicy trash. He didn't yet have those BTC yet but he already act this way. He will be worse than this when he found and recovers the BTC.

It would be surprising that none of his close friends or family ever advised him to give up that hard drive and try mining again. Suing the city for his carelessness is just not the way to go. After years of him dreaming that it will be found one day made him so entitled that he has the right to dig just about wherever he may want.

[m2017]

How about he finds a place to take all the garbage, and then pays the costs to move the ENTIRE landfill to that location, along with the cleanup of the existing area. He also has to pay for any damage caused buy the move and anything else involved with it.

Once it's in the new location, he can sort though it there on his own time.

-Dave

Your post gave me an idea.

Why should James conflict with the city council in attempts to obtain what is prohibited? In this case, it is precisely what is prohibited from the point of view of their legislation and harm to the environment. Why dig through a mountain of garbage, move it somewhere, just for the sake of one hard drive? Ok. James wants to get his disk/ bitcoins, but he may change his approach in negotiations with the city council. The tactic of threatening to bankrupt them, sue them is an aggressive policy that breeds evil and destructive actions. Why shouldn't James offer a different solution? For example, should recycle all this garbage? As I understand it, he found investors willing to allocate money to find a hard drive. So let them use this money to build a waste processing plant and clean out a landfill in search of a hard drive, clean up the surrounding area, not harm nature, obtain raw materials for recycling, and so on. What is the problem? What's the problem with agreeing win-win? James will get what he wants, the city council will solve the landfill problem with the help of other people’s investments, the city residents will get a clean area and a solution to the garbage problem. Even if the disk or bitcoins is not found, then everyone will win. Even James, who may not get his btc, but will become a local hero in the eyes of his fellow citizens. Perhaps even investors will make some profit from the sale of secondary raw materials for waste processing and the built processing plant, which can be used in the future, because there will already be a client in the form of this city.

I understand that in reality everything will be more difficult to organize and arrange, but instead of conflicts, why not try to come to an agreement in the most beneficial way for each party?

If story had developed according to this scenario, then instead of shouting that bitcoin is harming the surrounding nature, we would have heard that bitcoin is helping nature, which man has polluted with his activities, to become cleaner. Why not a newspaper headline?

[mvdheuvel1983]

https://protos.com/owner-of-8k-bitcoin-lost-in-landfill-threatens-to-bankrupt-local-council/

I think him lashing out at the city council and threatening to sue them doesn't make bitcoin look good. wherever his hard drive is, if it's in that trash dump i don't see how even a data recovery expert could get anything off of it. it's probably been crushed, cracked, corroded, etc. lost cause. his big mistake was throwing it away in the first place but that was his fault no one elses. he lost those bitcoin a long time ago. and they're not coming back. 

He should give up and admit "defeat". Regret is a difficult thing to live with, but he should just accept that he made a mistake, and nobody is above mistake. If he needs therapy to deal with then he should see a licensed therapist to help me through the process.  But making bitcoin look bad is something that the community will not accept at all.

It is even possible that if he had put in this much effort that he had put in in looking for the drive, into accumulating bitcoin through other means he probably would have gotten the 8k bitcoin. He must deal with himself and not with the local council.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

James lost the BTC in 2013 after cleaning out his old office and throwing his bitcoin cold wallet into the trash. The 8,000 bitcoin was worth £446 million at its highest and roughly £166 million ($207 million) today

.
Looking at this statement shown above, which I got from the link OP provided, I must say it clearly shows that neither was James Bitcoin hardware wallet stolen or rather misplaced in the council's premises, for him to be asking for such a huge sum of money. But was accidentally thrown into the trash bin a whole 10yrs ago and, which somebody is to be blamed for that, as nobody knew that item will be worth millions of dollars today. So for me I will only advise he accept the responsibility of his lost and move on, because even if a court permit is been granted to kick-start his search for his lost Bitcoin hardware wallet, I doubt if he has any chance of recovery it. Or even if he does, it should be damaged by now.

[Faisal2202]

https://protos.com/owner-of-8k-bitcoin-lost-in-landfill-threatens-to-bankrupt-local-council/

I think him lashing out at the city council and threatening to sue them doesn't make bitcoin look good. wherever his hard drive is, if it's in that trash dump i don't see how even a data recovery expert could get anything off of it. it's probably been crushed, cracked, corroded, etc. lost cause. his big mistake was throwing it away in the first place but that was his fault no one elses. he lost those bitcoin a long time ago. and they're not coming back. 

We do not know for sure whether those BTC exist or not, but I think James Howells has at least some hope to count on. I mean, why is the council not allowing him to dig the landfill? It seems doubtful, but let's just not jump to conclusions for now and wait to see what happens next. Now James Howells will sue them, asking for £446 million ($557 million). I mean, the chances of victory are lower, but still.

Maybe he will get some chance of digging up there. And what if he found his hard drive?Then, as you (the OP) asked, how could a data recovery expert recover something out of it? The point is, it's been a decade, and James is still hoping for it to be in healthy condition. I mean, if the device is not burned to ashes or melted, then I think there will be some chance of recovering the data from it.

At least giving it a try is better than sitting without hope.

[ZAINmalik75]

https://protos.com/owner-of-8k-bitcoin-lost-in-landfill-threatens-to-bankrupt-local-council/

I think him lashing out at the city council and threatening to sue them doesn't make bitcoin look good. wherever his hard drive is, if it's in that trash dump i don't see how even a data recovery expert could get anything off of it. it's probably been crushed, cracked, corroded, etc. lost cause. his big mistake was throwing it away in the first place but that was his fault no one elses. he lost those bitcoin a long time ago. and they're not coming back. 

He suing the city council does not have any good or bad impact on the image of Bitcoin; instead, if those BTC are found, there will be more BTC in circulation. This man made the biggest mistake of his life, and now he is fighting for it. That's the best he can do right now, but one thing confuses me: if the owner of the HDD is offering 10% to the CC, then why is the CC not allowing him to do digging?

I think they must have become greedy and thought of digging by themselves. I do not know; I am just making an assumption. There could be any number of possibilities. But things seem not to be as straight as they are trying to make them.

Recovering data from HDDs depends on their health. If it still has something in it from which a data recovery expert could fetch something, then keep the amount in mind. I can bet they will make sure to get something out of it. One more thing: James must have some proof to show that those wallets belong to him. He must need the.dat file containing the key to access the funds. Let's hope he finds what he's looking for.

[Beparanf]

https://protos.com/owner-of-8k-bitcoin-lost-in-landfill-threatens-to-bankrupt-local-council/

I think him lashing out at the city council and threatening to sue them doesn't make bitcoin look good. wherever his hard drive is, if it's in that trash dump i don't see how even a data recovery expert could get anything off of it. it's probably been crushed, cracked, corroded, etc. lost cause. his big mistake was throwing it away in the first place but that was his fault no one elses. he lost those bitcoin a long time ago. and they're not coming back. 

This guy doesn’t value Bitcoin before that’s why he throw it away. He is just making a fuss that his Bitcoin is important to him now that price is already high. It’s his own judgement by treating Bitcoin useless by the time he throw his hard drive.

I believe no one view this guy opinion seriously because we all know that he is the one to blame on his loss. He should backup his private key properly if he really give importance to his Bitcoin that time.

[salad daging]

I think this guy was done looking for his long lost hard drive knowing that he had dumped it himself not someone else.

Don't know how this person can sue their local council on fault or negligence on their part but this seems quite lengthy and the owner doesn't want to just give up with this long effort, even if they keep digging up the whole dumpster location and sorting it out themselves what is it likely to find? In theory it doesn't make sense that it will be recovered again maybe the Hard Drive will be damaged and corroded in the other pile.

Does anyone know the address of the lost wallet? Although this is not important.

[jrrsparkles]

https://protos.com/owner-of-8k-bitcoin-lost-in-landfill-threatens-to-bankrupt-local-council/

I think him lashing out at the city council and threatening to sue them doesn't make bitcoin look good. wherever his hard drive is, if it's in that trash dump i don't see how even a data recovery expert could get anything off of it. it's probably been crushed, cracked, corroded, etc. lost cause. his big mistake was throwing it away in the first place but that was his fault no one elses. he lost those bitcoin a long time ago. and they're not coming back. 

He trashed the wallet backup 10 years ago now threatening to sue the authority for following the orders that is what they are supposed to do.

It doesn't make Bitcoin bad, the person himself alone.

But many of the others pointed out it could be a made-up story and trying to get some money via such threats or coming to some kind of deal to not disrespect the other party here.

[Nwada001]

Every day with a different funny story, like, what the heck is the guy even thinking, suing Newport City Council (NCC), and what does he plan to achieve? Even if he succeeds with his plan to finally press a charge, will he win the chase, or does he think the local council will just admit defeat like that?

Don't he also look at it the other way round; That what if he take this case to court since he want to press charges, and the court finally grant him an order to stop the ongoing construction in the said location, and he is being permitted to search the area and make some digging as he have claim he can use that process to fine his lost hardrive, and at the end of the day he did not even see the cover or anything that will look like the hard drive, in their, if they even happen to see the hardrive on the process of the digging it might have been damaged through the machine that might be used that's if it will even be found, and after all this process, if the Newport City Council (NCC) decides to file a case on him and charge him for damages that might occur during his search do he think he can be able to escape such charges? 
 
Some people just need to run some rethinks over some things before they can take a certain decision and push it further. All I will say is that they just have some random bad legal adviser.

[adaseb]

Wow I am surprised he is still at it. I remember reading about this years ago and basically knew back then that it was gone forever.

When you throw away your garage, it’s not tracked where it’s dumped exactly. Maybe some site and some corner but exact location is never logged. So it’s impossible to know where it is especially when there is also other peoples garbage in that site and they pour new garbage over the old and seal it with a wrap and then more garage over that wrap.

And even if they found it, the data would be irrecoverable. Because due to the environmental chemicals it would be completely destroyed.

[gunhell16]

         -   8000 bitcoins—that's a lot of money. Just because I was cleaning the old office and spilled the hard drive. Why does the person who cleaned or fixed the office know nothing about Bitcoin? I just can't figure it out, or does the owner of the office not know that there is something hidden in a hard drive worth 8000 bitcoins?

It just makes me think: Did the person who put 8000 bitcoins in the hard drive that day know that the office would be cleaned? Obviously he didn't know, according to the article given, and maybe he only remembered when he put it on the hard drive in the office when it was finished cleaning. It's a terrible incident, and it's really sad. Wasn't the hard drive recovered from the trash?

[xSkylarx]

If he manages to recover it for sure, it is already submerged in water, the soil is already inside, and rust takes place, which is impossible to recover no matter how much he pays to recover it. It is just funny, though, that it was his mistake, and now he is blaming others for not allowing him to check the landfill. For sure, he has been sleepless for a couple of months now, always thinking of it, which is just wasting his effort. It is better to move on right now and learn from those hard mistakes, we can't do anything now, and that bitcoin is already lost forever.