A Welsh landfill dump where 8,000 Bitcoins are thought to be buried will be repurposed, at least partly, into a solar farm. According to BBC News, the local council will close the landfill in the 2025-26 financial year, and then it will be capped. Planning permission has been secured to develop a solar farm at the capped site. However, the man who lost the massive Bitcoin haul on a discarded portable HDD today said he was surprised by the council’s plans and has proposed a buyout of the site ‘as is.’
We last reported in January on the tale of this buried digital treasure trove worth over $780 million at today’s exchange rate. We thought we might have read the last chapter of this sad tale, as a high court ruling appeared to dash former crypto miner James Howells’ last hopes of getting his BTC HDD back (or any financial compensation).
However, we now have an epilogue where the land above the buried BTC becomes a solar farm. Rather poetically, the new solar farm will reclaim some of the energy frittered away by crypto mining. This seems to be an interactive novel, though, as an alternative ending to the saga was provided today, with Howells’ proposal to purchase the landfill site, which is hoping to dig up the old HDD and recover its digital treasure.