A discarded exhausting drive, a billion-dollar Bitcoin pockets, and a trash-strewn landfill in Wales are actually the inspiration for a high-stakes docuseries.
Leisure firm LEBUL announced this week that it has acquired unique rights to the story of James Howells, the British engineer who famously lost access to eight,000 Bitcoin (BTC) in 2013.
Dubbed ‘The Buried Bitcoin: The Actual-Life Treasure Hunt of James Howells,’ the multi-platform challenge will span a premium docuseries, a podcast, and a social-first storytelling marketing campaign.
It goals to dramatize Howells’ decade-long quest to get better the drive—now estimated to be price greater than $800 million, from a municipal dump in Newport, Wales.
“This isn’t simply content material,” stated Reese Van Allen, President of Unscripted Leisure at LEBUL. “It’s a live-action tech thriller with practically a billion {dollars} on the road.”
Howells, an early Bitcoin miner, says his former associate by chance tossed the exhausting drive in 2013. Since then, he’s taken Newport Metropolis Council to court docket a number of instances, searching for permission to excavate the positioning or demanding a share of the worth, at one level requesting £495 million in compensation.
Regardless of providing to separate any recovered funds with town and native residents, courts have dominated towards him, citing environmental and property regulation issues.
Howells’ authorized battle
Most lately, Howells lost a major legal battle in Cardiff Excessive Courtroom in early 2025. The council plans to close down the landfill in the course of the 2025–2026 fiscal yr and redevelop a part of it right into a photo voltaic farm.
Undeterred, Howells has steered he could attraction to the Supreme Courtroom—and even attempt to purchase the whole landfill.
LEBUL’s adaptation will mix real-time environmental battle, blockchain lore, and private obsession. In accordance with the corporate, world streaming platforms and crypto sponsors are already circling the challenge.
Howells’ story, typically likened to a modern-day treasure hunt, will now attain a broader viewers as LEBUL turns a forgotten piece of e-waste into leisure gold.
