He should post the ultimate "prove you are a psychic" challenge. People claiming to be "psychic" or such power, can get 100 million$ if they are right at finding the drive.
My heart genuinely goes out to him. Not merely for losing the bitcoin. The idea of trying to negotiate a search (or purchase) of the dump with the risk avoidant jobsworth council bureaucrats of a mid sized British town is spine chilling.
How did he lose the damn keys? It's kinda hard to empathize with that when everyone knows what the consequences are to (i assume) accidentally throwing a fucking single copy of your keys into the trash.
> The whole situation started in the summer of 2013, when Howells accidentally put a laptop that contained his Bitcoin wallet (with 7,500 Bitcoin) in a black bag in the hall of his house. His partner at the time assumed the bag was filled with trash and disposed of it.
I completely understand their desire to not let it be dug up. Where does that stop? People accidentally throw things out all the time, it's sadly a part of life.
He doesn't have that amount of money right now. He may never have it. They are taking a massive risk at a great expense to themselves. He may never find the hard drive, it may be unreadable, his memory maybe incorrect and he doesn't have the key on there, and so on. The council would be taking a pointless risk.
I really feel for this guy, because I "lost" 14,000 bitcoins, but in my case I know exactly where they went. And I still think about it them all.the.time. In my case, I wanted to hold onto them "like a lottery ticket", my (now ex) wife had this "sell when the 200 day moving average does X, and then we can buy back when it goes back down under Y" (but never did the buy back).
Garbage trucks these days often have cameras that film when a dumpster is picked up and dumped into the truck. Perhaps the same is done during unloading.
Whilst I feel a little for his case and understand he regrets being careless with the key, his life isn't determined by the cash. Is this the best use for your finite time on earth?
I don’t know how much time he’s spent collectively on this over the last 12 years, but it’s $770M. I think he could spend a moderate amount of time on this and it would be reasonable. Me? I’d have no problem checking in on the situation like once a year. And if I was feeling confident, buying + excavating would be the best ROI decision I’d ever make
I loved and hated that ending. To make matters worse, as a small correction, the war didn't break his glasses. He broke them himself by bending over after sitting to read. Talk about regret.
What are the odds that a laptop, having spent 12 years in the elements and probably under huge amounts of slimy weight, would even operate or have a functional drive if by some miracle he was able to find it? I honestly don't know, but it just feels like the entire thing would be fried.
It's not always successful though, making this a huge speculative case. That's even assuming it made it to the landfill and someone didn't pick it out first.