Film to be made on man who lost £570m bitcoin in Newport tip
May 1, 2025
Film to be made about man who lost £570m of bitcoin
BBCA documentary is being made about the man who lost a hard drive containing £570m of bitcoin.
James Howells, 39, has been trying to retrieve the hard drive containing his lost bitcoin fortune, which he believes is in a Newport landfill site, for over a decade.
Now, a production company from America, called LEBUL, have acquired the exclusive rights to develop and produce his story.
Mr Howells said he’s “excited” to “finally be able to tell the story in his own words”.
Mr Howells acquired the bitcoin, also known as BTC, during the early days of the cryptocurrency.
He claimed his ex-partner mistakenly threw out the hard drive, containing 8,000 bitcoins, in 2013, with it ending up in a tip owned by Newport City Council.
Last month, a High Court judge threw out his efforts to access the landfill or get £495m in compensation, saying there were no “reasonable grounds” for bringing the claim and “no realistic prospect” of succeeding at a full trial.
This led Mr Howells to represent himself at the Court of Appeal in London, using artificial intelligence to support his case.
However, in March, the court dismissed his appeal, and he is now considering taking the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.
Mr Howell has also expressed interest in buying the site after the council said it planned to close it in the 2025-26 financial year, however Newport City Council said it was making no further comment on the matter.
Getty ImagesMr Howells said “every man and his dog wanted to film this,” claiming he received about 200 offers from around the world, including from BAFTA and Emmy-winning production companies.
He said until recently, “the timing wasn’t really right with the legal battles”.
However, on Tuesday, the Los Angeles-based entertainment company LEBUL announced plans for a docuseries, podcast, and short-form content documenting Mr Howells’ mission to recover the mistakenly discarded hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoins.
Titled “The Buried Bitcoin: The Real-Life Treasure Hunt of James Howells”, the series is set to explore the early days of bitcoin, Mr Howells’ involvement, the legal battle, and his high-tech plan to excavate the site, all brought to life with extensive CGI.
Mr Howells said it would also follow his efforts to purchase the landfill where the hard drive is believed to be buried.
“It will follow the live treasure hunt if you will because even though the court has said no to me – I’m not giving up the fight,” He added.
Reese Van Allen, from LEBUL, said: “This isn’t just content.
“It’s a live-action tech thriller with nearly a billion dollars at stake — and LEBUL is proud to bring it to the world”.
The company said the series had already begun attracting strong interest from global sponsors, crypto leaders, and major streaming platforms.
Mr Howells said filming is scheduled to take place over the summer, with the documentary set for release in October or November.
He added: “This is the first sort of time that I’ve been able to show the world exactly what we want to do at the landfill site.
“Once people have viewed this documentary, they won’t think this is a crazy plan and they’ll think it is very achievable.”
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a virtual or digital currency that has no physical form.
Bitcoins can be split into smaller units, with a satoshi being the smallest monetary unit.
Satoshis are named after bitcoin’s inventor Satoshi Nakamoto – believed to be a pseudonym – who wrote a key document about the currency in 2008.
Those investing in the product around this time, like Mr Howells, were part of a “very small” crypto community known as Cypherpunks, said Billy Bambrough, author of the CryptoCodex newsletter.
Bitcoin was not the first cryptocurrency to be invented, but it did gain considerable attention with early adherents being “very quickly enamoured with it”, Mr Bambrough said.
Prices began to rise in about 2016 and 2017, and again in 2020 during the Covid pandemic when “stock markets, cryptocurrencies and meme coins went up hugely”.
“A lot of people got very rich, but a lot of people also lost money,” Mr Bambrough said.
The cryptocurrency also saw rapid increases in late 2024, shortly after Donald Trump’s victory in the US general election, with his administration being seen as far friendlier towards cryptocurrencies than the Biden White House.
“A lot of people in the crypto and bitcoin worlds say the price has gone up so much in such a short amount of time, they claim it could go higher and higher,” Mr Bambrough said.
“So I can understand why James [Howells] is keen to find his bitcoin.”
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