> he finally gave up

Sounds like something someone who found few billion USD on a thumb drive would say :)

I wouldn't say anything.

Has he opened a bar instead?

He named it Puzzles.

That’s definitely also what I would publicize if I actually found the HDD. :)

He lost his court battle to force the local government running the dump to allow him to dig the last I heard. So I doubt it, he wasn't even allowed to really try.

Good chance those coins are 100% traceable. They were lost in the days before good privacy tools like mixers, and the database of the biggest exchange MtGox was fully leaked so everyone knows the real name, email, bank details, and date of birth of the owner of every old coin.

Very pleased I disposed of all mine long ago, and the Blockchain shows that so nobody tries to kidnap me for the keys.

In the early days, a pentium 486 in your garage could have made these coins in a few months.

And you don't need an exchange to transfer coins.

No one knows who owns these wallets... yet. That's why they are mysterious.

Plenty of address reuse happened back then

Source?

https://x.com/howelzy

I went back to the (french) articles making that claim in headlines and it turns out to be false, thanks.

He lost his appeal in his case against the city authority to search the landfill, so he can't ever search for it. It's a bit buried in his feed in between the announcements about tokenizing part of these legally inaccessible coins.