Topic: Owner of 8K bitcoin lost in landfill threatens to bankrupt local council - page 6. (Read 1705 times)

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.

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

When you read only the first post and the title, you can write nonsense without even realizing it - because how many times does it have to be repeated that it was not he who threw the HDD in the trash, but his partner at the time. Commenting without knowing some basic facts is sometimes more stupid than what happened to that poor guy.

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In addition, no one mentioned that James claims that his HDD also contains an IP address from Satoshi and that he was one of the first six people mining at the time. And now we have to believe that Satoshi was so reckless as to reveal his real IP address - to me, that information seemed just like an attempt for James to attract even more attention and maybe charge for a few more interviews.

This guy needs to give up, it’s his own stupid fault. He threw it out years ago, like the OP said it’s probably totally destroyed. Even if isn’t, he can pay himself to exhume no doubt thousands of tonnes of shit pressed deep into the earth to try & find it. I don’t see how this anybody else’s fault or responsibility except his.

I expect that there is a possibility to recover data from the hard drive even if it has been severely damaged. I believe that there is a technology that allows data to be recovered in such cases, but it is very expensive.

With such a large amount of Bitcoin on the hard drive, it is certain that this unlucky person would not mind paying hefty additional costs to recover his Bitcoin.

It is unlikely to have gone to landfill. I belive they scan the tgrash to remove metal, and that goes to the scrappie. Failing that, some of the stuff that goes to the tip gets resold for reuse. So the drive could have been reformated and strill running in a refurbished pc. If I lived in Wales, I'd be checking my drives as I have got a lot of second hand ones.

Is it still possible to recover or retrieve the hard drive that was thrown in the trash? If I think about 8000 bitcoins just lost because they were thrown in the trash, it hurts the bangs a bit too much, to be honest. To this day, I still think that the person who fixed the office had no idea, and then the person who cleaned it seemed to have no idea that there was Bitcoin on the hard drive. But anyway, let's move on to this situation; we can't go back to the past, and I hope this becomes a lesson learned for them because the value of Bitcoin is not really a joke, to be honest.

I think you're on to something here. At the very least, maybe he could get some kind of "mild" lobotomy that would prevent him from continuing to care so much about what happened.    But you know, Laszlo "the Pizza Guy" seems to have made peace with what he did over the years. At least he got a couple of pizzas out of the deal.


Or even worse, that it can't be found because its not even there, or where they thought it was.


Seems like an important piece of the puzzle, so I looked it up, and indeed there is such an address that appears to belong to him:

https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/addresses/BTC/198aMn6ZYAczwrE5NvNTUMyJ5qkfy4g3Hi

I should send it some Rare Pepes  

i wonder if Mr. Howell knows any of the bitcoin ADDRESSES. That would certainly help build sympathy to his case. but i doubt he does. but if it's really 8000 bitcoin it shouldn't be too hard to find an old bitcoin address with an untouched balance of 8000 bitcoins.

If you look at how long the bitcoin wallet has been missing, I think OP's words are very correct. As you can imagine, this person's wallet/hard disk was lost in 2013, and until now in 2023 the hard disk has not been found. So if the hard disk ends up in a landfill, there are many possibilities that could happen. It's like the hard disk is damaged and its shape is no longer intact, because it was crushed by the existing rubbish. Or someone has found the hard disk and perhaps kept the hard disk. So in essence, looking at all these factors, the chances of finding a hard disk containing his Bitcoin wallet are very, very small.

But in reality, Howell has not given up looking for the hard disk containing his bitcoin assets. Because I can understand this, because you can imagine, if the bitcoins were not lost and sold when the bitcoin price reached ATH several years ago. Of course James Howel was already a very rich man. However, this really failed and James might have to end up daydreaming and would definitely be haunted by the shadow of his success if the bitcoins he had were not lost. So, in my personal opinion, the best way to do it right now is to release those lost bitcoins.

Even though the reality is bitter, a way out still needs to be taken.
Because don't let James get sick and that would be more dangerous than losing bitcoin.

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

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.

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.

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

Yeah, I don't admire him, and even if I harboured some sympathy, it's all gone when he did this (if true).

Ten years is a lot of time. I hope he comes to terms with it, hope he moves on, realises he's lost a good part of his youth. No need to waste more. Hire a company, pay them, get a move on.

Easier said than done, of course, I'd probably have wasted years doing what he did.

Since he was the one who lost the hard-drive, he wouldn't need to sue anyone in the court because the mistake was from him. And if the waste (garbage) packers saw the device and picked they would not know that such amount of bitcoins were inside or condemn iron picker has taken it, so since he didn't know who really picked it there is no way he can just sue the council. And since he lost it for a very long time, they have spoiled it unless the person is using it to store his personal information (data). And because of all these over excitements, some people decided not to over rich and over poor but just decided to be in the middle. When someone get money suddenly, with the over excitement at the time of the receiving the money, high blood pressure killed them. And I believe he did the mistake because he was excited at that time.

I agree, it's going to destroy him, unless he gets some psychiatric help. His life must be one big regret. I doubt that he can live a normal life and enjoy it unless he deals with this loss and moves on.


Is that your landfill? Why would you care about some random guy digging in a pile of garbage somewhere? I feel like everybody should be allowed to do these things as long as they aren't making other people's lives harder. Finding the drive could make some people happy, so why not allow them to do what they want with their lives.

Some people lose their minds if they earn more money and they cannot think of what he is doing right or wrong. I would not be doing such stupidity to store such a big fund of Bitcoin in a single wallet If I stored it then I would be very careful about my wallet and yeah I would put it in a safe for security purposes so that nobody can touch or steal it.
He needs to be going onwards and don't think about the loss. You have a family and you have to start something other instead of sitting in a corner and crying for your lost Bitcoin.

I feel for the dude but honestly I am not sorry for him. There's an adage that says never make the same mistake twice. The mistake he made some years ago, he's about repeating it the second time. He's in this ugly situation because he was impatient and couldn't hold on to his Bitcoin. So lashing out and threatening to sue the local council is not the best approach, should keep waiting and hope that he's given approval to excavate the land. If he does go ahead with the lawsuit I wonder what will be the legal ground... Obstruction of accessing personal belonging? I'm sure he's not going to win.

How does this make bitcoin look bad in any way shape or form? I don't think this makes bitcoin look bad personally.  This story though has been a common tale over the years. I feel like I'm hearing stories like this at least several times a year.

I feel bad for the guy, but be more careful with your valuable assets! I can understand too why the city council is not allowing him to go search for it.

his actions were like a child whining about something he lost and scolding his parents for the mistakes he had made. he should be aware that the actions he took were very stupid and he should be embarrassed to sue the local council because of his own mistakes.

instead of whining for these 10 years, why doesn't he invest in bitcoin again? in fact, if he invested in bitcoin in the past 5 years he should be able to make quite a profit and he wouldn't need to embarrass himself in public. very stupid.

I think suing is not the solution on this because win or lose that HDD won't appear when the judge has to give his or her final decision. Let me just say he is just so unlucky that he threw away his fortune.

If it's really been a long time since they threw the hard drive away, then there are no chances of finding it at all 

Even if there is, it's going to be a very slim chance, like looking for a pin in a river, where do you even start? It's nobody's fault they threw it away. This should serve as a lesson to others, and they should learn to keep their properties right. I have some old drives I am not using, but I still kept them because I might need them. You only throw something away when you're hundred percent it's useless.