I think people look at this story wrong.  It's not really a story of wealth lost in a landfill, it's more of a story of regretting not (re-)investing in Bitcoin in 2013 (and from what I'm told, later doubling down that error with investments in scammy clones).

Consider. Today 8000 BTC would trade for about 923 million dollars.  But where, or more precisely, WHEN did all those gains happen?  Not prior to 2013.   2013 opened with bitcoin at about $13 and it traded for about $120 most of the year.

So 99.9% of the gains happened *after* the claimed loss.  So they aren't what was lost.

If someone had *stolen* the coins back then they'd only be liable for the value of the coins then-- it would be on the victim to have acquired a replacement.

But a person's regret at not having acquired more bitcoin earlier is a story as common as people are.

It's very sad , that he has been trying to retrieve the hard drive that his girlfriend mistakenly threw away in the Newport Wales scrap heap. The hard drive had 8000 BTC stored . In January of 2025 the court formally rejected his legal proposal to dig the landfill. besides the chances of finding the hard drive is so low and even if they find the drive corrosion and contraction make data retrieval unattainable. An agonizing reminder that without a reliable reserve or cold-storage, that large sum of BTC can be lost.

Since 2013 many recycle plans have been completed, not to even talk about natural disasters happening around the world, land slides and so on, it's either the hard disk is already retrieved by a stranger or it's been burnt already, this is a never ending search that will never come to a success because it's been too long already.

He should learn from his lesson and work on something else, I know it will be very painful for him whenever he thinks about the past but he should also not forget that even the richest man on earth won't escape the gaze of death, everyone is going to the other side of this world.

I think about this alot whenever I lost some amount of money one way or another, what if I had it all and lost my life a day later? I've seen where someone vowed to do alot of good things in this world and he worked towards it, build himself and his family a nice home, and he didn't even last a month in the new home, he died.

He could of written it somewhere to not to get where he is now, but I agree, these times were not the same as we have now, with so many options to stay on top in terms of custody of our own wallets that it's not even funny anymore.

On one hand the man lives in a dream world. It's like he's 40% regret, 40% dreams of what he's going to do with the money, and the rest is allocated to planning, living a normal life and all that.
That's sad. The right course of action would be to buy bitcoin the moment he found out whatever he had was thrown out. And let's not forget that he should have made backups.

On the other hand I root for the underdog, so I'd like him to win against the dumb state and be allowed to look his drive.

Even if he manages to find it, would it still be considered his property?  

As far as I know, in most countries, whatever lands in the trash becomes property of the city/government. So even if he finds it, the government could easily sue him and take it back? That would suck but for almost a billion USD, I imagine that would happen.

And what happens if someone else finds it first? Is it still considered his property, legally? He threw it away so he relinquished the ownership rights?

I suppose that from the very beginning, Satoshi knew that scalability could become an issue in the future. That's why he introduced the difficulty adjustment to ensure a constant mining rate, and perhaps he even established that rule limiting the block size to 1MB to keep the chain's weight under control down the line.

I'm not sure if it was necessarily to prevent spam, but I believe he understood that over time the chain could become too heavy, creating limitations for nodes with fewer resources.

For your listening pleasure: Orphans of the Universe - Pattern-Seeking Animals

Where can i still download Bitcoin-Qt version 0.7.2? And can i run it separate from other versions already installed on my computer?

Lastly, what are some of the best programs to scan my harddisk for .dat files?

I am eager to learn more about private key generation in Bitcoin’s early days. Do you think Satoshi or early miners used a specific method, or did each individual develop their own approach?

Let’s explore this through historical documentation and technical discussions. Please share any interesting findings you may have.

Thank you!

So a lot of bitcoin has been lost due to incorrect wallet addresses and human errors..
     I however think that at this point of technological advancement, there should be a way to recover lost bitcoins. Not just bitcoins but other cryptocurrencies too. Now this may not be possibly done by the careless user, but it could be found by miners.
      Lost bitcoins should have a way to be mined back into the market and Recovered..
   Is there a project about this already?? What is your opinion and do you think it's is possible

So what recommendation do you have for me? Can I try transferring some of those funds to my wallet to see if it works or is it too risky to try?  thank you so much

James Howells has been going on about this for a very long time now, i get it that we are talking about life changing money here, but the chances of recovering that funds is slim to none. I don't know if James would take any further action after this verdict, but in my opinion, i don't think he should, this whole case must be taking a toll on his mental health when he thinks about how rich he may have been, but the sooner he lets it rest, the better for him.

Hi
If find key how can convert to provitekey and how import to wallet?