The speculation in never end. Nobody will ever know so its a pointless discussion.
All we can see is that the coins doesn't seem to be moving so or all purposes we can assume they are out of circulation.
It is impossible to tell if anyone's private keys were lost until a transaction is actually broadcast moving coins from such addresses, but even then the transaction could have potentially been pre-signed prior to someone loosing such private keys. All we can see is that the coins doesn't seem to be moving so or all purposes we can assume they are out of circulation.
This is why he would never have just 'deleted' his keys.
There's no way a guy like him would delete his own keys to make sure he didn't spend the coins.
It's also unlikely that a guy like him would 'lose' them either, though maybe he wasn't too careful with backups and lost a few, back when it was all 'pie in the sky' stuff.
So, imho, he still has most of them, doesn't need to spend any urgently, won't move any of the old coins yet because of the effect it will have, etc.
In future he gets to spend some and at the same time provably burn/donate many of the coins in a way that does the least damage and has most beneficial effect.
Fine thinking OP
that would be epic
