Bitcoin Dumpster Guy Has a Wild Plan To Rescue Millions In Crypto From a Landfill (gizmodo.com) 168
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Former IT worker James Howells -- who once stood on the very forefront of the crypto boom and could have been a multimillionaire -- is desperate to scour a UK landfill located in Newport, Wales where he might find a missing drive that contains the passcode for a crypto wallet containing 8,000 bitcoin, worth close to $176 million as of writing. Howells said he accidentally dumped the wrong hard drive back in 2013. Though the price of crypto remains in the proverbial dumpster, this data cache represents millions of dollars simply stuck on the blockchain, with nobody able to access the wallet without the required passcode. It's been a long road, and he hasn't given up on his quest to rescue his missing millions. Only problem is finding that hard drive would require digging through a literal mountain of garbage.
In an interview with Business Insider released Sunday, Howell said he has a foolproof scheme to rescue his bitcoin from an actual trash pile. He's put together an $11 million business plan which he'll use to get investors and the Newport City Council on board to help excavate the landfill. His proposal would require them to dig through 110,000 tons of trash over three years. A $6 million version of the plan would go over 18 months. A video hosted by Top Gear alum Richard Hammond said the bitcoin "proponent" has already reportedly secured funding from two Euro-based venture capitalists Hanspeter Jaberg and Karl Wendeborn, if Howells can get approval from the local government.
The garbage would be sorted at a separate pop-up facility near the landfill using human pickers and an AI system used to spot that hard drive amidst all that other refuse. He's even brought on eight experts in artificial intelligence, excavation, waste management, and data extraction, all to find a lone hard drive in a trash pile. The plan also involves making use of the Boston Dynamics robotic dogs. The former IT worker told reporters the machines could be used as security and CCTV cameras to scan the ground, looking for the hard drive. When they were released, each "Spot" robot model cost $74,500. Even with that price tag, Howells said he already has names for the two. Insider reported he would name one Satoshi, named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the person or group behind the white paper that first proposed bitcoin back in 2008. The other one would be named "Hal" -- no, not that HAL -- but Hal Finney, the first person to receive a bitcoin transaction. A spokesperson for the local government told Insider Howells could present or say "nothing" that would convince them to go along with the plan, citing ecological risk. If the council says no -- again -- Howells told reporters he'd take the government to court.
In an interview with Business Insider released Sunday, Howell said he has a foolproof scheme to rescue his bitcoin from an actual trash pile. He's put together an $11 million business plan which he'll use to get investors and the Newport City Council on board to help excavate the landfill. His proposal would require them to dig through 110,000 tons of trash over three years. A $6 million version of the plan would go over 18 months. A video hosted by Top Gear alum Richard Hammond said the bitcoin "proponent" has already reportedly secured funding from two Euro-based venture capitalists Hanspeter Jaberg and Karl Wendeborn, if Howells can get approval from the local government.
The garbage would be sorted at a separate pop-up facility near the landfill using human pickers and an AI system used to spot that hard drive amidst all that other refuse. He's even brought on eight experts in artificial intelligence, excavation, waste management, and data extraction, all to find a lone hard drive in a trash pile. The plan also involves making use of the Boston Dynamics robotic dogs. The former IT worker told reporters the machines could be used as security and CCTV cameras to scan the ground, looking for the hard drive. When they were released, each "Spot" robot model cost $74,500. Even with that price tag, Howells said he already has names for the two. Insider reported he would name one Satoshi, named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the person or group behind the white paper that first proposed bitcoin back in 2008. The other one would be named "Hal" -- no, not that HAL -- but Hal Finney, the first person to receive a bitcoin transaction. A spokesperson for the local government told Insider Howells could present or say "nothing" that would convince them to go along with the plan, citing ecological risk. If the council says no -- again -- Howells told reporters he'd take the government to court.
The curse (Score:5, Insightful)
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This guy needs to read Moby Dick. He's going to secure a loan for $1M to search for the hard drive and then find it, on the day that bitcoin goes to $1.
or find that the drives disc platters were damaged at any one of the many points it experience a sever physical shock while passing through the processing waste management system
Re:The curse (Score:5, Insightful)
So many ways for the endeavor to fail... and so few ways for it to succeed. I can't imagine a 20:1 payout being nearly enough to warrant the risk.
But, if he really wants to do it, get a waste-to-energy plant on site to deal with the "processed" waste (along with metals recovery) and do a life extension on the landfill in the process. Then maybe at least something good is guaranteed to come out of it all.
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It does seem highly unlikely that he will be able to find it.
Even if he finds it, it's been outdoors and probably under a mountain of other rubbish for what, a decade now?
Moisture, pressure from above and the sides. It was likely smashed around by the vehicles they use to dump the rubbish, and then driven over by their tracks.
The best he could hope for is that the platters inside are relatively intact and can be recovered by data recovery experts. That's a very long shot.
Even then, he needs the bit with the
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No "likely" about it. They roll over the trash to mash it flat for space.
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I just want to know how he is going to know the right drive when when he sees it?
Did he record the serial number of the drive? Will the serial number on every found drive be legible? How much wasted effort will there be to recover data from the wrong drives?
The devil is in the details and I think the bright floodlight of potential millions is blinding several people to the dauntingly miniscule chances of success.
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Apparently he has another drive identical in model to the one he threw out, so they only need to investigate all of the drives of that particular model. This does not help reduce the size of the haystack, but there will be many fewer needles to sort through.
Re:The curse (Score:4)
Is it even in the land fill? A hard drive is a significant piece of metal. All the land files that I know of automatically remove large pieces of metal with magnets and send it off for recycling. Odds are this drive was already shredded, melted down, and recycled in to someones beer can.
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A hard drive is a significant piece of metal. All the land files that I know of automatically remove large pieces of metal with magnets and send it off for recycling. Odds are this drive was already shredded, melted down, and recycled in to someones beer can.
And even if it’s miraculously preserved intact, they usually separate metals using. . . a very powerful magnet.
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With apologies to Kansas ... "All they are is bits in the wind.."
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This guy should read How Not to be a Stupid Dick. I'll write it right now. It will consist of only two words. The first one will be "Fuck". I will give you three guesses what the second one should be, and all three of them will probably be acceptable answers.
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..not find it.
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Exactly.
AI and robot dogs is so dumb that it will be funny when it fails.
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And for all practical purposes, that is merely virtual millions, until it is found it is worth $0. And if drive is found it likely is unable to be read.
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Shitcoin will never be back to previous levels, just like NFTs. You might as well try to convince people to trade wooden nickels as "carbon credits".
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Shitcoin will never be back to previous levels
People were saying that when bitcoins were worth a millionth of what they are worth now.
Re: The curse (Score:2)
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Found the person sitting on a pile of them and desperate to find some dupes so he can get out.
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There's plenty of people willing to buy at ~$21k right now on Coinbase. No need to search.
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Well, the problem is he probably bought for more and hopes desperately that the price rises.
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Possibly. If it follows historical patterns, though, he's no need to worry. For better or worse, BTC isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Re: The curse (Score:2)
So you think he paid more than $21K for 8,000 bitcoin ($178M) worth, then absentmindedly threw the drive away?
No. Not even remotely possible.
More likely he paid way, way, WAY less than $21k for each of his 8,000 bitcoins, and is beside himself trying to find where the wallet is to unlock his fortune.
The only way this story makes any sense is that the 8,000 bitcoins were so cheap that he never bothered to keep an eye on his crypto wallet or think about it until much later.
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My reply was to a person saying
There's plenty of people willing to buy at ~$21k right now on Coinbase. No need to search.
with the subthread itself being about someone desperately trying to convince everyone that the price will rise, MUST rise, again.
Please at least read through the gist of a thread.
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There's plenty of people willing to buy at ~$21k right now on Coinbase. No need to search.
There's a lot of people whose lives have revolved around Bitcoin for years and now find it hard to let go, yes.
Re: The curse (Score:2)
You're making the assumption that you have NFTs (non fungible toenails), but actually your toenail clippings are fungible for toenail clippings the world over.
Note: this is a joke, BTC will likely keep going down since it's a terrible currency and people will realize it's useless.
Will the insanity ever end? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But he has a "foolproof scheme", its right there in the summary. I mean obviously this guy is a "foolproof" kind of person and anyone would give him money to dig up trash.
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Not even counting that the drive will be unreadable whenever he finds it. Foolproof indeed.
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I always thought bitcoin mining was a dirty business, but this takes it to a whole new level - in a mountain of trash, dirty diapers and food waste
At least it will use much less energy than mining them electronically.
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He's also demonstrating how to mine trash for things that are valuable. This could bring the cost and technology down for the actual trash mining for all sorts of inorganic matter.
If nothing, he may have a demonstrable technology in place after this, go mine the trash with robots for rare earth metals, gold, silver, lithium and other things we desperately need now that just a decade ago was simply thrown in the trash.
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Still looking for dupes to buy your bulbs?
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I can sell them right now for real cash on dozens of exchanges.
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Don't worry, we don't do age discrimination here. Boomer is a state of mind.
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Unlikely to be millenial. More likely genz idiot. They make Millenials look smart.
That's "zoomer" to you, boomer. LOL...kids...amirite?
self promotion (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would not count on being able to retrieve data from HDD stored in controlled environment for 10 years. He is trying to recover it from dump?
A 10 year old HDD stored in a controlled environment might not spin up, but the data is still there and still easily recoverable. You might have to use forensic recovery techniques, but it'll work. As for a drive that has been in a landfill... it really depends whether anything has penetrated the case and gotten to the platters. If not, the data will be fine.
Sorry guy (Score:5, Interesting)
Landfill.. (Score:2)
Why in the world do you still allow electrical and electronic waste to be dumped in landfills? In fact, why do you still have landfills in the first place?
We haven't had that here in 20 years as it's government mandated that all E/EW is separated from any other kind of waste and recycled properly.
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I have bad news. Most of the "recycled electronic waste" stuff ends up... in landfills.
Re:Landfill.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but in Africa where I don't see it, so it's a-ok.
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That's not even counting that people put regular trash in the recycle bin and then add recyclebale items on top of it so the trucks pick it up.
In San Antonio, you are allowed an extra city recyle bin free of charge. You are billed if you need an extra non-recycle one.
Re:Landfill.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, in the UK I spend my professional life disposing of electronic waste by the tonne in ways complying with WEEE regulations.
One of those ways is to literally hire a guy who comes to my workplace, picks everything up, signs all the available paperwork etc.
He's also told me that he then drives it to an airport where it's loaded onto planes and sent to a foreign country. Who also sign off the WEEE disposal documents for him.
What happens to it from there, nobody knows, but the implication is that it basically gets landfilled abroad.
Seriously - a 90's CRT is worthless, and we're paying money to ship them around the world, there's no way anyone's taking them apart and doing anything with them, and even if they are, there's no way they're doing that SAFELY.
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Was once smashing hard drives for data security.
One person cracking them open, another pummelling the platters to oblivion.
We were about 50 drives deep when we discovered one with a glass platter.
There are still shiny glints of glass-dust on the floor of that place, 10 years later.
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It's not allowed. Anything electronic sold in the EU has the "crossed out wheely bin" symbol on it, meaning that it's not allowed in general waste and needs to go to the appropriate facility - most councils will have a dedicated electronics skip at the household waste centre, and you're supposed to take your old electronics there.
But if someone puts it in the bin anyway, unless someone happens to spot it, it will end up in landfill. The councils don't empty out the bin lorries and have someone pick through
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In fact, why do you still have landfills in the first place?
Where is that "here" that doesn't have landfill? Isn't most trash pushed to landfills? You can't compost EVERYTHING at that scale.
Dumb money. (Score:2)
But what he's actually doing, what's someone that foolish going to do with $175 million? For sure he'll just buy more crypto, like a common gambling addict.
He's running out of time (Score:2)
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Yeah, but rarely the desperate and stupid. Fools and money don't mix.
Ethics and Conscience? (Score:2, Offtopic)
good money after bad (Score:3)
Knock-On Benefits? (Score:2)
Extortion, anyone? (Score:2)
"See, I have this megawatt electric magnet here that I could use to go through the trash. Don't want me to use it? Give me a reason"
I think this has a better chance if (Score:3)
He also offered to sort out all the garbage that was being dug up for recycling.It will reduce the size of the dump / extend the life of the dump since it will be less full by the time he is done with it.
And also maybe collect and provide data on what sort of garbage is coming in, hire some people to work on garbage reduction, etc.
Am sure the local government will be more interested in such things then have someone dig up a dump and they get nothing in return.
privacy (Score:2)
How does the council know he's not an identity thief on the prowl for someone else's personal information?
We, especially on slashdot of all places, know the implications of the phrase "dumpster diving" even in cases far less literal than this one.
Sorry, but once it's in the trash, no takebacks.
If they're responsible they'll not only tell him to bugger off but they'll have him arrested on trespassing charges if he goes looking for it.
He should have thought about this before he put it in the rubbish b
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PII is worth money, but not the kind of money he would be on the hook to pay back to investors and the city.
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It's a pancake by now (Score:2)
Given how much any waste is moved by industrial machines before it gets to the final resting place, and how much mass is in waste per unit of volume, the drive is probably a crushed pancake with chip sprinkles by now.
In three years (Score:2)
he will not get the $11 million back from the bitcoins, in case he could found them. Today exchanges are not freezing transfers and withdrawals, what makes he think that some exchange will give him $11M three years in the future?
"Foolproof" (Score:2)
Sigh (Score:2)
This idiot again.
9 years buried under tons of rotting landfill, subject to rain, rust, corrosion, all manner of deterioration from biological and household chemical waste seeping through that pile, being crush, twisted, driven over and moved with bulldozers.
There's no way that drive has survived. Give it up. And next time you have some digital asset you want to keep, no matter the value, back it up.
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Maybe his purpose is to be a warning to others (Score:2)
Fascinating (Score:2)
Howells told reporters he'd take the government to court
I admit I'm not exactly well-versed in UK law, but I'd *love* to know what the legal basis would be for this.
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Judge:"And your legal basis for this court forcing the local authority to cooperate is?"
He could claim Unjust Enrichment citing that his wealth has been procured by them unjustly through mistake by being on their property, and that they are therefore liable to either return/allow him to recover the property or pay back the value of the property.
Another scheme? (Score:2)
The chances of finding that drive are probably somewhere between zero and none. However, those investors' $11M would give him a nice retirement in a country without extradition treaties.
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But hey, if they DO find the drive, then he can pitch Idea Number 2 to Investors which is to pay another few Million costs for an attempted Data Recovery project, since the drive will be so far gone that extraordinary efforts would may required.
Backups (Score:2)
Why such extremes (Score:2)
A spokesperson for the local government told Insider Howells could present or say "nothing" that would convince them to go along with the plan, citing ecological risk.
"nothing" is pretty strong there, I mean why such an extreme? The job certainly CAN be done in a way that the environmental risks should be pretty minimal. Don't get me wrong - I think the guy is a dope for wanting to try this, He SHOULD be required to comply with stringent health and safety standards. Doing this right is likely to fantastically expensive and the town should certainly require he put some additional monies up front that will be held in escrow should there be any special clean up required. However if he is willing to do do those things I don't see why they are so dead set on keeping out of the dump.
Would they respond to the police or a local prosecutor the same way if they wanted to look for evidence of a crime? I can also understand the desire to say 'no' to stop others from wanting to go future dump diving efforts but; the risk of that becoming disruptive seems pretty low as long as they really do make the guy food the entire bill. I really doubt there are going to be many people that want drop a few hundred Gs to go sifting thru the trash, without some damn good reasons.
Oak Island 2.0 (Score:2)
some ways to find it (Score:2)
Haven't I seen something like this before? (Score:2)
Ah, yes, The Magic Christian, final scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
"Take the city to court?" Good luck with that (Score:2)
. If the council says no -- again -- Howells told reporters he'd take the government to court.
Good luck with that.
He threw it away. Therefore, legally he is No longer the owner of that property anymore, and it belongs to the landfill; there will be no grounds in court, and investor money would be wasted (It will probably end up wasted even if the project is allowed). The government does Not have to allow an excavation project - if the council doesn't think it's in the public interest, then they'll
Literally a waste of energy (Score:2)
Dang (Score:2)
Its sad - the *potential* of that money (that he'll almost certainly never get) has basically ruined this guy's life.
Probabilities on a usefull drive if they find it. (Score:2)
If the drive first went in tho the back of a garbage truck it would have been compressed into a very compact space and thus possibly destroying the connectors on the drive as well as destroying the circuit board attached, so those would likely have to be replaced.
A hard drive in the trash stands a good possibility of being pulled from the garbage heap for recycling.
If it was passed under extremely strong electromagnets, strong enough to pull out iron and steel from the garbage stream then although the
51% "attack"? (Score:2)
If this genius really knows where on the blockchain his bitcoins are, can't he just "sponsor" a 51% "attack" on the blockchain to assign the bitcoins to him? Just contract with enough of the miners to collectively agree to put in the transfer.
Would be a lot cheaper than $11 million...
This is probably just a formality (Score:2)
This stupid idea is probably just some kind of formality as part of a longer process to try and get money out of the city using the lawsuit.
This smells suspiciously like some kind of silly ploy to fake a proposed compromise (and a ludicrous one at that) before filing a lawsuit in which the plaintiff is expecting a settlement.
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In most developed nations, that's just straight up illegal. You're not allowed to export a lot of hazardous waste from landfills specifically because of the horror show that was the business of exporting trash to third world.
And that's before all the local leak risks.
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There are property and personal data issues too. Stealing other people's rubbish is illegal, because even once it's been thrown out it still belongs to them. There is possibly personal data in there too, documents or identical looking hard drives that need to be scanned to see if they are his.
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I don't think that's true. Are the police allowed to did through the trash wthout a warrent? (Obviously once it's outside the house).
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UK worst offender in Europe for electronic waste exports – report [theguardian.com]
The UK is the worst offender in Europe for illegally exporting toxic electronic waste to developing countries, according to a two-year investigation that tracked shipments from 10 European countries.
And here's a PSA:
Preventing the illegal export of e-waste [youtube.com]
The Environment Agency is working with 42 of its counterparts around the world through something called the Interpol Global E-Waste Crime Group
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>>> legal requirements for there *not* to be hazardous
Hahaha, you're so gullible it isnt even funny.
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Well, it is,or at least it used to be, but the expense involved is through the roof. I doubt it would be cost effective, even if he found it.
(OTOH, I have heard that modern disks now use the track edges and fancy encoding schemes, so the recovery no longer can be done. But I don't know, and it USED to be possible. Just insanely expensive.)
Why do you think it's dead? (Score:2)
Once a hard drive is sent to a landfill, it belongs there. This guy obviously believes Hollywood CSI-style data recovery is an actual thing (it's not).
Chances are the hard drive is still pretty intact in that landfill, a lot of stuff is thrown away in plastic bags that could easily have kept moisture away for a very long time.
And even if moisture got in, most hard drives are pretty well sealed these days, so it sill might be OK if the outside rusted slowly or maybe was made of non-rusting materials. if the
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Laptop drives usually have platters made of glass. A hard impact or crushing could have shattered them completely beyond any hope of recovery.
Re:Why do you think it's dead? (Score:5, Interesting)
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In the process of reading data the drive firmware is making notes of which sectors are "weak" and to give them a fresh write during an idle moment.
[citation needed]
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The can't. There was even an open challenge worth $1000000 to anyone able to recover data from a HDD which was zeroed once, to say nothing of your multiple scrubbings. No winners. None. And that was from days when sectors were physically much larger too.
You've been lied to.
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And the guy is free to find his private key in some other way: bruteforcing, astrology, tea-leaves, ... But in the same way as you can't force the dump to retrieve the paper with the safe combination, this guy can't force the council to get the hard disk with the key.
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My question was going to be, what if a worker swipes the drive after finding it? Would the technology allow someone to rip him off? And then, could that person keep the proceeds? It's been too many years since I took contract law, but whether it was discarded .vs lost makes a difference, and I don't know where "accidentally discarded" falls on that spectrum. Either way, he'd better check people's pockets at the end of a work day.
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Actual bitcoin question: if he does not have the key, is he still able to tell if somebody else gets the key and starts spending his bitcoins?
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If the movie were at all accurate, it'd be like the original Ocean's Eleven - where, in the end, they don't end up with any of the money.