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A Welshman who accidentally threw away a hard drive with £150m worth of Bitcoin on it says he has now raised enough money to look for it.
James Howells lost 8000 Bitcoin in 2013 when his ex mistakenly took his computer to a Newport rubbish dump.
Howells has been trying to find his lost hard drive for years, even going as far as to hire data experts that once helped NASA recover a hard drive from a crashed space shuttle.
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Howells been unable to search the dump because of the local council which refuses to let him look for it—even though he has offered them a quarter of his fortune.
After years of obstacles he now says he's been able to raise enough money to dig it up and look for it, despite the local council refusing him again and again.
Howells, a 37-year-old IT worker, says he has recruited an AI specialist, an environmental team, and 'various experts' who can safely dig up the landfill.
He has even pledged 10% of the proceeds to fund a new 'cryptocurrency hub' in Newport and give £50 of Bitcoin to every Newport resident.
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Howells told the BBC: "We've got a whole list of incentives, of good causes we'd like to do for the community.
"One of the things we'd like to do on the actual landfill site, once we've cleaned it up and recovered that land is put a power generation facility, maybe a couple of wind turbines.
"We're like to set up a community owned (Bitcoin) mining facility which is using that clean electricity to create Bitcoin for the people of Newport."
Newport council says it has repeatedly refused the request because of its 'statutory duties'.
A spokesperson told the BBC: "Part of this is managing the ecological risk to the site and the wider area. Mr Howell's proposals pose a significant ecological risk which we cannot accept, and indeed are prevented from considering by the terms of our permit."
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