Lost Bitcoins Man is still trying

[Liefrich]

I don't really understand why this is even being entertained myself?

Surely this is a slam dunk throw the case out?

You were correct; as predicted, his case has failed.

BITCOINS IN THE TIP: DEFENDANT COUNCIL GRANTED SUMMARY JUDGMENT: CLAIMANT’S ARGUMENT ON LIMITATION DESCRIBED AS “DESPERATE”

In Howells v Newport City Council [2025] EWHC 22 (Ch) HHJ Keyser KC granted summary judgment to the defendant council in an unusual case. The claimant was seeking to recover a computer hard drive w…

www.civillitigationbrief.com

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[Demon]

Surely Goldie Looking Chain need to do some song about this..

"Bitcoin don't make money, Refuse men do, I saw it on a documentary on BBC2"

I actually do feel sorry for the guy, £500M lost like that must be head-doing to say the least, I can imagine it almost haunts you!

Still a very expensive life lesson, there is no way he's got any real case to force it..

 

[413x]

Surely Goldie Looking Chain need to do some song about this..

"Bitcoin don't make money, Refuse men do, I saw it on a documentary on BBC2"

I actually do feel sorry for the guy, £500M lost like that must be head-doing to say the least, I can imagine it almost haunts you!

Still a very expensive life lesson, there is no way he's got any real case to force it..

You either accept it or lose your life to it.
I genuinely don't know if I could get over it or not in his position.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

They were not worth £500m when he lost them so there is a certain amount of revisionism going on.

He couldn’t possible say he would still own them today if he didn't lose them.

 

[I kill Bunnies]

I dont know all the details but I expect this guy would have cashed his BTC in early if he could and made "only" thousands instead of millions.

 

[Priapus]

You either accept it or lose your life to it.
I genuinely don't know if I could get over it or not in his position.

Nah, you just move on. When the drive was thrown out; it was not worth £500m, anyway. So he hasn't "lost" anything near that as he never had it to begin with.
Time for him to move on with his life and forget this.

 

[Semple]

If I'm reading that correctly one of the main reasons the judge threw out the claim was because he lost the drive in 2013 but only bought the claim to court in 2024 - 11 years later, and clearly too late.

Hopefully that makes any chance of an appeal a non-starter. I also hope the council can pass their legal fees so far onto the claimant and that his backers now disappear as little chance of ever winning this case.

This guy will never move on from this though, I can see this eating away at him in another 50 years. Hopefully that will at least stop all the news stories bringing this up every time Bitcoin pumps.

 

[Semple]

Nah, you just move on. When the drive was thrown out; it was not worth £500m, anyway. So he hasn't "lost" anything near that as he never had it to begin with.
Time for him to move on with his life and forget this.

He won't move on, it's been 11 years and iirc from some of the earlier stories it destroyed his relationship with his at-the-time partner. It's basically consumed 11 years of his life and as far as he'll be concerned he was done out of any justice.

 

[Demon]

They were not worth £500m when he lost them so there is a certain amount of revisionism going on.

He couldn’t possible say he would still own them today if he didn't lose them.

Of course not, but today as it stands he's in a position that this thing he's lost is still going up in value stratospherically all the time and surely that just drives/maintains his desire to retrieve it which is a terrible situation to be in unless you truly can just move on and let go..

If he hadn't lost the HDD, then we'd not be here commenting on it, which is why commenting on the here and now is all we can do..

 

[413x]

They were not worth £500m when he lost them so there is a certain amount of revisionism going on.

He couldn’t possible say he would still own them today if he didn't lose them.

No. For sure he'd have sold some. Still. Pro3could say 100mln left over.
But never know. He could easily have cashed out at 100k (random figure). Many did. Most did.

 

[PC777]

They were not worth £500m when he lost them so there is a certain amount of revisionism going on.

He couldn’t possible say he would still own them today if he didn't lose them.

Yes, this is the mindset he needs to operate under. He didn't lose £500m, he lost what they were worth at the time, about $300 each. Still a bad loss but nothing like torturing himself over them being worth $75k each right now.

I knew what bitcoin were in some detail back in 2009, I didn't think they would be any good so didn't buy any, I also remember years later when they hit $50k and crashed all the way back to $20k in a day. I never thought they'd go up to $75k and I still think they could totally crash one day to zero. I toyed with putting £100 in when they were pizza prices in 2010 or so but didn't, my loss in hindsight but no point ruminating over it.

A good writer could make him some gold out of his story, make a movie out of it. Here's a decent ending - eventually against all odds he does find the drive, has the correct key, restores the coins only for a major financial crash seeing them drop to what he paid for them. Would teach him a valuable lesson.

 

[Jono8]

No. For sure he'd have sold some. Still. Pro3could say 100mln left over.
But never know. He could easily have cashed out at 100k (random figure). Many did. Most did.

Let's face it. The amount of people holding bitcoin from when it was only worth pence is infinitesimally small.

Most people will have sold most, if not all the bitcoin they held from that time.

Therefore he has a point.

 

[Jono8]

Yes, this is the mindset he needs to operate under. He didn't lose £500m, he lost what they were worth at the time, about $300 each. Still a bad loss but nothing like torturing himself over them being worth $75k each right now.

I knew what bitcoin were in some detail back in 2009, I didn't think they would be any good so didn't buy any, I also remember years later when they hit $50k and crashed all the way back to $20k in a day. I never thought they'd go up to $75k and I still think they could totally crash one day to zero. I toyed with putting £100 in when they were pizza prices in 2010 or so but didn't, my loss in hindsight but no point ruminating over it.

A good writer could make him some gold out of his story, make a movie out of it. Here's a decent ending - eventually against all odds he does find the drive, has the correct key, restores the coins only for a major financial crash seeing them drop to what he paid for them. Would teach him a valuable lesson.

This is the best way to look at it. Would anyone here have seriously just sat on it, or most of it, even when it went from pence to being worth just a few grand or ten grand etc?

There may be a few, but I'd say 99.9% cashed out their early bitcoins (IE when it was in its infancy), a long time ago.

 

[bigmike20vt]

the only way i could ever "win!" on something like this would be if i was having a sort out and instead of me formatting the drive which had the bitcoin on (which is what i am almost certain i did when i decided it was all a scam and worth pennies that i mined) would be if i was having a sort out and i found a really old memory stick and had a nosy to see what was on it and it turn out i never deleted it after all.

if i had kept my handful of coins that i mined, i undoubtedly would have sold them once they got to a value which made it worth me actually working out HOW to sell them back then, so mine would have been long gone by now anyway.... ie i would have sold once they hit £10 or so a coin maybe and i had enough to pay for a meal out for me and the mrs.

 

[arknor]

Let's face it. The amount of people holding bitcoin from when it was only worth pence is infinitesimally small.

Most people will have sold most, if not all the bitcoin they held from that time.

loads of people mined it back in the day and very few are millionaires now.

there's like 2 on ocuk who got rich from crypto?

 

[Jono8]

loads of people mined it back in the day and very few are millionaires now.

there's like 2 on ocuk who got rich from crypto?

Exactly. Most sold, far before it went to the highs it is now.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I've just worked out he had 8000 coins in 2013 which were worth £611 so nearly 5 million.
He should have gone with a better offer, let him have 10 million and the Council can keep the rest.

 

[Drizmod]

Exactly. Most sold, far before it went to the highs it is now.

I was one of those that would have been a multi-millionaire If I held on to all that i mined! My best mining was with Dogecoin I was there with my 3 MSI 7950s on the night Dogecoin was available to mine and I was getting like 30k dogecoins per minute