Imagine misplacing something. Maybe your keys. Maybe your wallet. Now, imagine that lost item held the key to over 800 million dollars. That is the story of James Howells and his missing Bitcoin hard drive. It is a tale that just took a new turn.
- An entertainment company, Lebul, has acquired the rights to tell James Howells’ story, planning a docuseries, podcast, and social media content. The project will explore the financial, technological, and environmental aspects of the story.
- Howells is partnering with Lebul to produce a docuseries about his missing Bitcoin, which is worth approximately $800 million. He hopes the series will accurately portray his story.
- Howells is exploring multiple avenues to recover his hard drive, including potentially buying the landfill site or launching a crypto-related token. Despite the slim odds, he remains determined.
An entertainment company called Lebul announced this week they bought the rights to tell Howells’ story. They plan a big project. It includes a docuseries, a podcast, and lots of short videos for social media. They are calling the docuseries “The Buried Bitcoin: The Real-Life Treasure Hunt of James Howells.”
Lebul says the story will mix cinematic style with what is happening right now. It will cover the huge amount of money involved, the tech side of things (blockchain, which is like a digital ledger), and even the environmental part of digging through a landfill.
Reese Van Allen, who heads up unscripted shows at Lebul, put it simply. “This isn’t just content,” he said. “It’s a live-action tech thriller with nearly a billion dollars on the line.” He sounded pretty excited about bringing it to the world.
Howells himself posted about it. He used X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. He mentioned the huge sum: $800M, which is about 8,000 Bitcoin. He said it had been buried for over a decade. He felt proud to announce the partnership with Lebul, an LA-based company, to make the docuseries and show “what comes next.”
A story the world is waiting to see. $800M — 8,000 bitcoin. Buried for over a decade.
Proud to announce a partnership with LA-based production company Lebul to produce a docuseries, covering ‘The Buried Bitcoin’… including what comes next! 🔥https://t.co/y5x4Zl3x1s
Lebul seems like a new company. Not many people know them yet. But they say they have a strong team. They talk about film experts, marketing pros, and people good at telling digital stories. They also claim companies, crypto leaders, and streaming services are already showing interest in the project.
Howells told The Block, a news site, why he picked Lebul. He said he really clicked with their team. He sees them as capable and creative. He thinks they have the skills to run a big media campaign over the next year or so. He believes they are the right people to tell his story. He wants it told with the right seriousness, detail, and fairness.
He added that Lebul is genuinely keen on telling the whole story. Not just the search for the hard drive. They want to cover the legal fights he has had, the environmental issues of digging up a landfill, the technology involved, how the story has affected people, and yes, what happens next.
Neither Howells nor Lebul shared how much money the deal was worth. Sometimes, these things stay private.
How This All Started
James Howells is a computer engineer. He lives in a place called Newport, in South Wales, UK. He thinks his old partner accidentally threw away the hard drive back in 2013. That hard drive held the key to his Bitcoin wallet (a digital place where crypto is stored).
He took legal action. He wanted to get access to the local landfill. Or, he wanted the Newport City Council to pay him a lot of money, something like £495 million ($609 million at the time he asked). That is a massive amount of cash.
In court last December, they learned Howells got into Bitcoin early. He mined (created new Bitcoin using computers) over 7,500 BTC back in 2009. Back then, Bitcoin was worth almost nothing. Funny how things change, isn’t it?
But the judge, Andrew John Keyser KC, said no. He threw out the case on January 9th. He said there were “no reasonable grounds” for the claim. He felt there was “no realistic prospect of succeeding” if the case went to a full trial. Too much time had passed, the judge thought.
Howells did not give up. He tried to appeal the decision in March. But that attempt also failed. The court closed that door, at least for now.
But Howells has other ideas. He told The Block he and some investment partners might want to buy the landfill site outright. This is the Newport Docksway landfill. He said they would pay a fair market price if the current owners would sell. He did not name the partners involved.
He mentioned he had talked with several interested groups recently. He said he had “a few options on the table.” It seems he is exploring every possible path to get to that hard drive.
Even if he does get access to the site somehow, the chances of finding the hard drive are incredibly slim. The landfill holds about 1.4 million tonnes of garbage. Waste experts in the UK, from a company called Business Waste, told The Block in February that the odds are just 1 in 902 million. That is like trying to find one specific grain of sand on a very, very large beach. Maybe even bigger than a beach.
Howells strongly disagreed with those experts at the time. He rejected their low odds. He also did not like the idea that he could not find the hard drive with the money and technology he could get his hands on. He seems to believe he can beat those long odds.
He explained the steps for buying the landfill. First, he would need to see if Newport City Council would even sell the site to a group focused on investment and maintenance. Then, they would need to talk about getting a permit to dig and clean up the area from Natural Resources Wales. Only after those big hurdles would they get into serious talks about deals and money.
If buying the landfill does not work out, Howells has another idea. He is thinking about launching a utility token (a type of crypto coin) or an NFT (a unique digital item) related to his search efforts. He previously told The Block he felt “pretty confident the crypto world would have my back.” It is true, the crypto community can be very supportive of interesting projects, especially ones involving lost fortunes.
So, the hunt continues, even if the courts said no. And now, the whole world might get to watch it unfold thanks to this new media deal. It is a story of a man, a hard drive, a landfill, and a fortune that is either lost forever or waiting to be found. It is quite a tale, isn’t it?
