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

[mv1986]

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. 

I noticed that this case is still a thing and looked it up and yes it is the Howell's case. I wonder if this really makes still sense to go after those Bitcoin. We are talking about a hard drive that has been in a giant hill of trash for years now.

If I understand correctly, he has been trying it since 2013/14(?), but I don't quite get the council's reasoning here. What is the point of not letting him search for it when they can first come up with a set of requirements that he must adhere to?

I agree that the chances are basically zero and he might be as well off playing the lottery instead (although it is tough to find one that pays that much money for the jackpot win ). But I also get why he is trying so hard. It must be a nightmare. Though there was a report about another guy who lost 7,002 Bitcoin because he forgot the password for his hard drive. The one good thing about it is that some of the hard drives really seem to be safe places and nobody could crack them.

[coolcoinz]

Is that your landfill?

it's the public's landfill, not his.

Which means he also pays for it in taxes, right? I'd say if he wants to dive in a pile of garbage, let him. Plenty of people do it without asking.

maybe other people lost things they don't want someone else digging up. this guy would just be having free reign over everybody's trash.

When you throw something away you forfeit your privacy anyway. That's why we have shredders and that's why we wipe drives before throwing them away.

but that's just the point, it makes everyone's lives harder. and for no good reason. except to make one man happy? i dont think that's a good enough reason why they should dig up a bunch of trash and maybe expose the public to a bunch of toxins that could get released into the air or water.

How does he make your life harder? There are people digging through trash in various parts of the world as we speak. Do you think that if any toxic materials are stored there, they won't get into water or air at some point in time? The council could demand he follows safety protocols, or even recycles part of the stuff he goes through and actually make the place a bit tidier.

there has to be a limit on that though. you can't just let people go digging up landfills looking for stuff.

The government does that from time to time to compact everything and make room for new deliveries. What's wrong with allowing a private company to do the same?
Also, this is an exceptional situation because he's willing to pay for it.

[Silberman]

Bro has lost it completely. My story goes to 2010 when I first had the opportunity to buy 200 BTC for $20 and I'm doing okay over here where I'm at just barely paying all my bills and entertainment lol. Now I have a like .1 BTC total lol. Such is life. My plan is to just earn more by means of forming a company that only accepts crypto, but I've never really had a start up so thank God we have AI lol

The guy is probably never going to let it go, he cannot accept that he made a huge mistake by throwing those coins away, however he seems to think he could have hundreds of millions on his bank account, but it does not seem as if he has ever stopped to think what he could have done if he had not mistakenly thrown away that hard drive, and it is incredibly unlikely he will still have that bitcoin, and it is likely he would have sold his coins for a low price, and instead he will just be mad that he sold his coins for a few hundred dollars a piece.

[panganib999]

To watch this guy from way back then become this husk of a desperate man is just depressing. Way back then you'd really root for him, especially since we love impossible stories and he's pretty determined to find his lost treasures and earn back his fortune. Nowadays you can't root for him anymore. He's exhausted all efforts, time, and money for an impossible task that has spanned years already. We all know it's better for him to just quit and move on with his life so he can I don't know, earn his lost coins in a more established way instead of looking for something that is already gone forever, but due to sunk cost fallacy you can't make this guy relent.

This story will either end with him getting arrested for it or dying, or him actually finding his hard drive which is even more impossible. I'm pretty sure of that.

[Ale88]

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. 

Again this guy? Again?! That hard disk is lost forever, it's now been 10 years, it could be under tons of trash of even completely destroyed. I don't understand how he can sue the city for not giving him the permit to do whatever he wants like he owns the place. It's just ridiculous what he is doing, just get over it, you will never get those bitcoins back, focus on your current life instead of being stuck in the past.

[larry_vw_1955]

The government does that from time to time to compact everything and make room for new deliveries. What's wrong with allowing a private company to do the same?

because it's not for the greater good  it's not helping anybody except possibly him. thats the only reason he's doing it is to help himself not help anyone else.

Also, this is an exceptional situation because he's willing to pay for it.

yeah but it's not worth it to city council. so he can't do it.

[Renampun]

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. 

Again this guy? Again?! That hard disk is lost forever, it's now been 10 years, it could be under tons of trash of even completely destroyed. I don't understand how he can sue the city for not giving him the permit to do whatever he wants like he owns the place. It's just ridiculous what he is doing, just get over it, you will never get those bitcoins back, focus on your current life instead of being stuck in the past.

It's possible that someone pushed him not to give up on getting his hard drive containing Bitcoin at any cost, I'm not on the side of the city council but they can use all kinds of laws and regulations that apply in the city to fight the demands of the man who lost the hard drive. 10 years is quite a long time to be able to find the lost hard drive, especially if the city has an automated waste recycling facility then the chance of getting the hard drive back from the man is around 0.0009%

[larry_vw_1955]

what if city council has been rummaging through the trash dump for years trying to get that guys bitcoin? it wouldn't suprise me if someone had taken a quick peak here and there just to see if there was some western digital hard drive lying around.

i think he might have made a mistake by admitting that he lost something valuable. better if he would have said he lost a sentimental piece of jewelry that some long lost relative gave him years ago and he doesn't know if he can go on if they can't help him recover it. at leas that way he might get some symptathy. but no one feels sorry for him about his bitcoin!

[AndrewWeb]

Am I the owner of all the rubbish I have thrown on the dump ? I am not. Neither is he. The the local council or whoever finds it, is the owner.

 

[Ultegra134]

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. 

Again this guy? Again?! That hard disk is lost forever, it's now been 10 years, it could be under tons of trash of even completely destroyed. I don't understand how he can sue the city for not giving him the permit to do whatever he wants like he owns the place. It's just ridiculous what he is doing, just get over it, you will never get those bitcoins back, focus on your current life instead of being stuck in the past.

It's possible that someone pushed him not to give up on getting his hard drive containing Bitcoin at any cost, I'm not on the side of the city council but they can use all kinds of laws and regulations that apply in the city to fight the demands of the man who lost the hard drive. 10 years is quite a long time to be able to find the lost hard drive, especially if the city has an automated waste recycling facility then the chance of getting the hard drive back from the man is around 0.0009%

It's not the first time I've heard about this guy's HDD. It happened over 10 years ago; let it go; there's no chance of it ever being found, and even if we suppose that it is found, it certainly won't be functioning after being in a landfill for so long. It's purely his fault for throwing it away. My only guess is that he knows that there's no chance of recovering his HDD but is hoping that he can yield some money by suing the local council; perhaps some lawyer is leading his case in hopes of gaining some money from them. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if he's just lying in order to gain publicity and also attempt to earn money from this story.

[The Cryptovator]

The case is really complicated. But the local council has nothing to do because it's not their duty to secure someone else's bitcoin or device. Even the person who files a case won't gain from such a case. And after 10 years, I don't feel it's possible to recover his bitcoin, even if he were able to find his hard drive. Even the person won't prove he really holds 8K bitcoins on his hard drive. And finally, it's hard to identify where it is currently.

[SamReomo]

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

He's just out of his mind and it doesn't make Bitcoin look bad because it's not fault of Bitcoin that they were lost but it was the fault of that person who didn't took care of his Bitcoin. Bitcoin still looks good and it will remain looking good forever.

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. 

That person wasn't smart enough to save his private key/pass phrase and wallet details on paper or somewhere safe because hard drive is the worst medium to save your keys and if someone does that then that person isn't aware about hard drive failures. He lost the Bitcoin because of his own stupidity and now he's blaming city council for his loss. I feel bad for him but it was his own fault which made him lose all his Bitcoin holdings.

[Oilacris]

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. 

On the time that Bitcoin was just into its early years then only a few did make out have that trust on investing into it without even having those kind of hopes or insights about becoming big in the near future and on the time comes that Bitcoin did hit up those bull run prices or new all time highs then for sure it did spark out and make those early adopters to find their Bitcoin stash on which this one included for course. No one had ever been that believing that Bitcoin would really come that far and it would really be just that normal that you would really be finding where those coins been hiding and been stored and we know that on that time which only a few do mind about their coins because it was cheap but on the time that it did make out some huge movement then this is where
stash-digging happens.

This would be a good read up in talks about lost wallets.
https://buybitcoinworldwide.com/lost-wallets/

You could really be able to say on how such a waste on losing those coins which value over billions of dollars but well there's nothing we can
do about it since it is really that lost and floating in the void forever.

[digaran]

I wonder if he has the public key for the address?, or were they stored on one address or more?

Knowing the public key, he could at least have some hope, not that knowing public key could do magic, but at least we have some ideas which could be used to solve for private key. Of course if he is willing to spend money to hire a professional programmer to code the said ideas into an application/ tool.
Doing this is more practical than searching garbage, the hard drive is damaged by now due to humidity

[OgNasty]

I wonder if he has the public key for the address?, or were they stored on one address or more?

Knowing the public key, he could at least have some hope, not that knowing public key could do magic, but at least we have some ideas which could be used to solve for private key. Of course if he is willing to spend money to hire a professional programmer to code the said ideas into an application/ tool.
Doing this is more practical than searching garbage, the hard drive is damaged by now due to humidity

I assume he has the private key. Otherwise he can’t be sure the funds weren’t already found and spent by someone else. Don’t kid yourself though, even with the public key there is no magic he can work and no additional hope that he would ever be able to get control of that lost Bitcoin ever again. He could look at it though.

[famososMuertos]

...77...

Well, I do not criticize any of  the protagonists of the news, man!, they are not your bitcoins and you have the nerve to throw out that "brave" comment, probably to win applause.

Anyway, the city council has the It has the power over the garbage by law, so, They do not want to give in to the idea because it creates a precedent for an ordinary citizen who does not belong to  government
Then, bitcoin thing is the least important, perhaps a precedent is created and anyone will want to take out of the trash what they forget.

[larry_vw_1955]

I wonder if he has the public key for the address?, or were they stored on one address or more?

think about it. he was so careless he didn't even backup that one hard drive. that means he didn't store anything. no private keys so probably nothing else either. who is dumb enough to store their public keys but not their private ones. no one. he probably never even used bitcoin for anything either. so unlikely he would have even concerned himself with his actual addresses. sounds like he just mined those bitcoin and forgot all about it. like it was some worthless thing.

[yazher]

Well, this is one example of someone who can't move on from his lack of consciousness regarding Bitcoin's old era, he needs to understand that what happened is part of the puzzle that has already been completed and he just needs to close his eyes and move on. everyone from that era who didn't take much seriously about taking care of their bitcoins has already moved on and none of them really care about what happened but they just continue to live their lives and took that experience as a lesson, while this guy has been digging all these years but didn't find anything at all and now he turns against the local council.

[fruktik]

I noticed that this case is still a thing and looked it up and yes it is the Howell's case. I wonder if this really makes still sense to go after those Bitcoin. We are talking about a hard drive that has been in a giant hill of trash for years now.

If I understand correctly, he has been trying it since 2013/14(?), but I don't quite get the council's reasoning here. What is the point of not letting him search for it when they can first come up with a set of requirements that he must adhere to?

I agree that the chances are basically zero and he might be as well off playing the lottery instead (although it is tough to find one that pays that much money for the jackpot win ). But I also get why he is trying so hard. It must be a nightmare. Though there was a report about another guy who lost 7,002 Bitcoin because he forgot the password for his hard drive. The one good thing about it is that some of the hard drives really seem to be safe places and nobody could crack them.

What is there to understand on the part of the council? Well, a person shouldn’t dig through garbage. You never know what could happen to him. They are trying to protect him from the senseless search for an “artifact”. At landfills there is a chance of picking up some kind of bacilli, which will lead to an epidemic or something like that. Still, there are some concerns. It is quite reasonable to restrict people from visiting such sites even if they have all the permits.
It's time for this guy to accept this fate of such an unbearable loss and move on with his life. This is a much better option than trying to find a needle in a haystack.

[larry_vw_1955]

It's time for this guy to accept this fate of such an unbearable loss and move on with his life. This is a much better option than trying to find a needle in a haystack.

just imagine if once he runs out of options with the city council and the lawsuit he turns to the bitcoin community and asks them for donations to get him his 8000 bitcoin back. i'd be surprised if anyone gave him anything.