Newport City Council has dismissed a request from a man who accidentally threw away a hard drive containing bitcoins now worth around £128m. James Howells, an IT worker from Newport, South Wales, discarded the hard drive at a local dump in 2013. He said that he had forgotten about the bitcoins, which were worth around £4.50 at the time, until their value soared in 2017. Mr Howells has been trying to persuade the council to let him search the landfill site for the hard drive, but they have refused. The council said that the cost of searching the landfill would be too high, and that the chances of finding the hard drive were slim. Mr Howells has said that he is willing to pay for the search himself, but the council has not agreed to his request.

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