The quest to find $181 million in bitcoin buried in a dump

When James threw out his hard drive, his life changed.

Two identical laptop hard drives were squirreled away in a drawer. He says one was blank and the other was worth about $181 million.

He intended to throw out the blank one, but instead he put the drive in a garbage bag.

He mined in 2009, and is determined to get his money back.

Local authorities are hoping to allow a high tech treasure hunt for the buried bitcoins. He cannot get into the dump.

James wants to get him into the dump. The Wales News is written byDarren Britton.

Newport's city council has denied his requests to dig for his hard drive for almost a decade, but he is not giving up.

He gave Insider a first look at his $11 million proposal, which was backed by venture capital funding. He hopes to convince the council to allow him to recover the hard drive.

Finding a hard drive in 110,000 tons of garbage

It might be hard to find a hard drive among a lot of trash.

He believes it can be accomplished through a combination of human sorters, robot dogs, and an artificial-intelligence-powered machine.

The plan is based on how much of the landfill the council will allow him to search.

The most extensive option would cost $11 million and take three years to complete. It would take 18 months to make a scaled-down version.

One advisor who worked for a company that recovered data from the black box of the crashed Columbia space shuttle is part of a team of eight experts.

The experts and their companies would be paid a bonus if they were successful in retrieving the bitcoins.

The project is trying to be a full commercial standard.

Machines would dig up the garbage and then sort it at a pop-up facility.

A machine from Oregon called Max-ai was used to sift through it. The machine looked like it was set over a belt.

According to Insider, the company would use artificial intelligence to spot hard drives that look similar to the ones in the picture. Any objects that could be a contender would be picked out by the mechanical arm.

The security costs were built into the plan to make sure people wouldn't try to dig up the hard drive themselves.

Two robotic "spot" dogs from Boston Dynamics would be used to patrol at night and sweep the area for anything that looks like his hard drive by day, as part of his budget for a 24 hour security system.

Boston Dynamics makes robot dogs. Sam Barnes is the sportsfile for collision.

A dress rehearsal of his pitch to the council was held in May at the Celtic manor Resort outside Newport, according to Insider.

It's a story that goes from the incredibly mundane to the colossal Richard Hammond

The meeting was filmed and attended by a man who is going to release a documentary on the subject.

"They're clearly a bunch of very committed people who have faith in him and the plan."

It's a story that spans from the mundane to the monumental. I don't think I would have the strength to respond to the door.

As much of the garbage can be recycled after excavation. It would be reburied.

He said they don't want to damage the environment. We would like to leave everything in a better state.

There is a landfill in Wales. The Wales News is written byDarren Britton.

He wants to build a solar or wind-energy farm on top of the landfill site. It looks like the council won't agree to his vision any time soon.

A council representative told Insider that there wasn't anything that Mr. Howells could give them that would make them agree. The terms of our permit prevent us from considering his proposals because they pose a significant ecological risk.

Will the hard drive even work if it's found?

The "platter" is a disc made of glass or metal that holds the data. The data will be retrievable if the platter doesn't crack.

Phil Bridge said the figures were accurate.

The drive was the same size as the one lost. There is a disc in the middle. The Wales News is written byDarren Britton.

The data could only be retrieved if the platter is damaged.

Bridge was involved with the project because he liked it. He said it was one of those cases that caught his attention. It would be a great success story for him to get it back.

Where would the funding come from?

If the council approved the project, Hanspeter Jaberg and Karl Wendeborn, two venture capitalists who are based in Switzerland and Germany, promised to give $11 million.

Jaberg said it was a very high-risk investment.

He didn't have a contract with the prospective backers, but he had talked about it in meetings. There is nothing to sign up for until I get something from Newport City Council.

What if he does find the bitcoin stash?

If he was able to retrieve the data, he would keep 30% of it, worth just over $54 million.

He said about a third of the money would go to the recovery team, 30% to the investors, and the rest to local causes.

The amount has fallen from the $240 each he told CNN in January 2021.

What if the council doesn't agree to his plans?

He will take the local authority to court if he doesn't get the backing of the council. He said he's been reluctant to go down that route because he didn't want to cause problems. I wanted to work with the city council.

He said he hadn't been given a face-to-face meeting with the council. He said he was given a 20-minute Zoom meeting in May 2021.

He said he had a meeting with Jessica Morden. The meeting took place.

He can't do anything until the council is aware of his new plan. He said this is the best situation he's been in. This is the most professional operation we've put together and we have all the best people involved.

He says he makes a living by buying and selling the virtual currency.

He tries not to think about what his share of the money would allow him to do if the hard drive is malfunctioning. He said you drive yourself crazy if you don't.