Summary
James Howells lost 8,000 Bitcoins worth over £500 million when he accidentally threw away a hard drive containing his private key.
He has been trying to retrieve the hard drive from a Newport landfill for over a decade, but the council has refused to allow him access.
Howells is now suing the council for £495 million in damages.
It’s been over 10 years. Even if he found it, what is the likelihood any data could still be retrieved from a hard drive that’s been buried in landfill for that long?
Pretty good actually. But the odds of finding it are basically nil. A needle in a haystack would actually be easier.
He just needs to drag an incredibly powerful magnet through the landfill and sort through the metal that sticks to it. Piece of cake.
With headlines like this, it’s always important to keep in mind that bitcoin is such a thinly traded (and largely artificial) market that actually trying to sell 8,000 Btc for real dollars/pounds would instantly and catastrophically crash the price.
I agree with everything you said but 8000 bitcoin won’t move the price much. We’ve seen management firms buying hundreds of millions worth of bitcoins
Different dynamics. Buys require sellers, of which there are a fair amount (though few enough still that large purchases absolutely do shift the price significantly; we’ve seen multiple instances of Tether bringing the price up by 20% or more for the cost of billion newly minted USDT). Sells require buyers, which are in very short supply.
Yes and no.
The ETF changed the dynamics of BTC a little.
Now there’s an introductory price for Bitcoin once it hit the stock market, and there’s interest and reason for holders to not want it to go lower than that price. $55k thereabouts is when the ETF began.
Also, people are using Bitcoin like an index fund. They get paid, they invest. Every paycheck.
It’s an odd thing to watch. I don’t see another huge crash, but I don’t see miracles, either. BTC has no use as a fast method of payment. Store-of-value is all it has.
Imagine what focusing on this does to your life
My ex wife’s mother threw out a box of my stuff with a thumb drive containing about 300 bitcoin.
At the time I misplaced the thumbdrive it was only a couple hundred bucks I was out.
I chuckle at her burning in hell from time to time
You would have sold the Bitcoin long before it was as valuable as it is today like almost everyone that’s had Bitcoin over the years.
FALSE, I would have bought drugs with the bitcoin had I remembered I had it. Ultimately I just forgot about the thumb drive and it sat in a box of our stuff. I was reminded of its existence years later when it was worth a lot.
She chucked it out of spite because the stuff was identified as mine, nasty hobbit she was. Idk when she chucked it or its value but I do know had she not chucked it I’d also probably have bought drugs with the bitcoin.
“Accidentally threw it away” really sounds more like “threw it away, didn’t have a backup, he now regrets throwing it away”.
Dread to think what his solicitor is making by allowing this delusion to continue (unless he’s representing himself in which case…fair enough I suppose). I’ve been reading about this man for years it seems like.
“alright, here’s a shovel, get to it.”
James was then suddenly aware of how big a landfill really was.
“No, you can’t use a bobcat.”
