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In brief
A production company has secured rights to turn the life of James Howells into numerous media ventures, including a docuseries. Howells says he lost a hard drive containing $750 million worth of BTC over a decade ago. For years, he has unsuccessfully lobbied to search the landfill where he maintains the drive is still buried. The story of a Wales man who believes he accidentally threw away $750 million worth of Bitcoin is now poised to get the Hollywood treatment.
On Wednesday, a new Los Angeles-based production company, Lebul, announced that it secured the exclusive rights to tell the story of James Howells, an IT engineer who mined 8,000 BTC back in 2009—when the tokens were effectively worthless—and then lost them all.
Howells maintains that a former lover threw away a hard drive containing the tokens back in 2013. They are worth nearly a billion dollars. For the last several years, Howells has waged an unsuccessful battle to search the Wales landfill where he insists—somewhere—his digital treasure is still buried.
Last month, a British appeals court issued a final ruling ordering him to not sift through the waste site in search of his hard drive. Howells condemned the judgement as a tactic employed by UK elites to sweep the affair "under the carpet." He says he now plans to buy the landfill when it closes next year.
In the interim, the Welshman is now seeking to overcome another statistically imposing hurdle: having his tale turned into a high-profile docuseries.
Howells told Decrypt he has "received hundreds of offers" from "all sorts of award-winning production companies" over the years, to turn his saga into a documentary. But ultimately he went with Lebul—in part, he said, because the company is willing to help launch a "global media campaign to support my broader objective of acquiring the Docksway landfill."
Lebul says it plans to turn the story of Howell's failed mission to search his local landfill into "a bold, multi-platform media venture including a premium docuseries, podcast, and an expansive short-form content and marketing strategy across social platforms."
"This isn't just content," Reese Van Allen, the company's president of unscripted entertainment, said in a statement. "It's a live-action tech thriller with nearly a billion dollars on the line—and Lebul is proud to bring it to the world."
Howells is confident the media enterprise will not only do justice to his experiences, but also touch on more universal themes.
"The documentary will expose the environmental contradictions of Newport City Council and shine a light on the long-term financial obligations taxpayers face from maintaining a closed landfill," he said, "while also introducing a global narrative built around technology, reclamation, and digital ownership."
Additional reporting by Mat Di Salvo
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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