There’s no stopping him, it’s a huge amount of money, so if there’s even a small chance he can recover it, of course he’ll try. As for whether he has the seed phrase or some kind of access info, I’m pretty sure he does. Otherwise, why would he still put in all this effort if he was already hopeless? Simple logic, really.
True, it's all worth it even it's just a small chance to find it. Imagine if that less 1% chance and he still have leads then that 8000 Bitcoin that is almost a billion dollars, is all worth it.
But of course, he invested money to it then he should have been careful about it, and why would his girlfriend threw it? I mean why she has access to it. Too many questions in our mind but this is a lesson learned for majority of the people to be careful on your keys/wallets, be mindful of your investments.
I understand why he feel that way. But he should have protected it at first before when it was still on his hands. The other big time holders were able to hold their Bitcoins and held it for several years. And that's the reason why they are now enjoying the money that they've sold for it. Although this is really painful and should be a very life changing story but then now on an opposite manner.
The guy messed up; he failed to protect it, but we can’t also completely blame him too. Back then, he didn’t know how valuable bitcoin would be today because if he did, he should not have kept it where the girlfriend could easily get rid of it without thinking twice, just like the girlfriend can’t get rid of his valuable documents, certificates, etc. They’re two are just to share the blame; it’s not a one-sided something.
There was no faith in bitcoin from a lot of persons back then about bitcoin's potential to exponentially attain such price value as it has today, hence, a lot of early owners didn't attach that much security and value to safekeeping it neither it's seedphrases. Because even if the drive was lost, what happened to the seed phrases? Did he also lost it too or are both in the drive?!
Can't blame them tho, you believed but at the same time you're focused on other things in life and forgot about Bitcoin because it's just small value that time.