The Race to Recover the Lost Bitcoin Fortune Before Quantum Computers Get Their Hands on It

During the summer of 2013, Mr. Howells mistakenly threw away an encrypted hard drive that held the key to his 8,000 bitcoins

A Welsh man's bid to dig up a landfill to find a hard drive containing bitcoins worth hundreds of millions of dollars has taken a new twist as he explores buying the site to continue his search.

James Howells, from Newport, South Wales, said he accidentally threw away the hard drive in 2013 and has been trying to get permission to excavate the site ever since.

The former IT worker said he had an agreement with his former girlfriend at the time to take out the rubbish, and she took the drive to a local council waste disposal facility, from which it eventually ended up in a landfill in Newport.

Upon realizing his blunder, he sought funding and assembled a team of experts to excavate the site, even offering to give the city 30% of the coin’s value (at that time around $70 million) in exchange for permission to dig.

However, the city has denied him permission, stating that excavating the site could release harmful substances, posing “potentially serious risks” to public health and the environment.

Now, Howells is exploring the option of purchasing the landfill site, which is set to be closed and converted into a solar farm, to continue his search.

"The council has said no and that's that, they won't budge on it. I've had to pivot and come up with another plan, which is to buy the site ourselves and get on with it that way," Howells told the BBC.

"We're in talks with the administrators at the moment and we're hoping to get it over the line in the next few weeks."

He said he believes he can narrow down the search area to around 10,000-15,000 tons of waste out of the 350,000 tons in the landfill.

"We're going to be able to get down to a fine level of detail in terms of where the hard drive is," he said.

"We're going to be able to get within a cubic meter of where it is, which will make the search a lot easier."

Howells said he had hoped to get permission from the council to start digging by March, but that plan has now been scrapped.

"We were hoping to get started by March, but that's not going to happen now," he said.

"We're still hoping to get started this year, but it depends on how quickly we can get the deal done to buy the site."

He said he had also received interest from other parties who wanted to join the search.

"We've had a lot of interest from people who want to get involved in the search," he said.

"There's a group of volunteers who are keen to help out and we're also talking to some salvage companies who could potentially be involved."

Howells said he was confident that the hard drive was still intact and that he would be able to recover the bitcoins.

"I'm sure the hard drive is still there and I'm confident that we'll be able to find it," he said.

"It's going to be a lot of work, but it's definitely possible."