A billion-dollar bitcoin wallet on a hard drive thrown in the trash in Wales has become the basis of a new documentary series.

A billion-dollar bitcoin wallet on a hard drive thrown in the trash in Wales has become the basis of a new documentary series.

LEBUL, a leading entertainment firm, has announced that it has secured the necessary rights to adapt the story of James Howells into a documentary series.

Howells was a British engineer who could no longer find the login details to his 8,000 BTC twelve years ago. LEBUL plans to turn the James Howell story into multiple movie-related projects. These projects will involve a storytelling campaign, a standard documentary series and a podcast.

The documentary series will be a movie adaptation of Howells's 10-year effort to reassess the hard drive from a Newport, Wales landfill. The engineer’s Bitcoin holdings will be worth more than $800 million based on the coin’s current price.

Reese van Allen, a top-level executive at LEBUL, stated that the series won’t just be content; it will include a live-action tech thriller. Howell was an early Bitcoin miner and stated that his former spouse threw away the hard drive accidentally in 2013.

Since that time, he has taken legal action against the Newport City Council to obtain permission and dig up the site. He also went to court seeking that the Newport city council pay him a fraction of the value of the lost BTC.

At one time, Howells demanded financial compensation of 495 million pounds. The British engineer also offered to split the recovered worth of the BTC local residents and the city if they should grant him the approval he sought.

However, on each occasion, the courts cited property and environmental law concerns to rule against him.

Howells Presses On With Finding Lost Bitcoin

Earlier this year, a BBC report revealed that Howells also lost a legal case in a Cardiff high court. During the 2025/26 fiscal year, the council intends to shut down operations of the landfill and convert a portion of it into a solar farm.

The BBC report added that Howells has still not given up. He plans to take the case to the Supreme Court or try the whole landfill. The documentary series by LEBUL will be a mix of blockchain narratives, a personal obsession and environmental conflict in real time.

The entertainment company stated that it has received offers for sponsorship of the project from crypto companies and streaming platforms worldwide. LEBUL’s movie adaptation will make Howells’ story well-known to a wider audience.

This move could turn the forgotten e-waste into a profitable venture through the entertainment industry.