A landfill site in the UK, once at the center of a desperate search for a lost hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin, is set to shut down permanently. According to a report by BBC News, the Newport, Wales landfill—where IT worker James Howells believes his hard drive was mistakenly discarded in 2013—will close by the 2025-26 financial year.

The Newport council confirmed plans to cap and close the site, which has been operational since the early 2000s. In its place, a solar farm has already received approval for development. This decision effectively ends Howells’ decade-long fight to recover what he claims is a fortune buried beneath the waste—an estimated $768 million worth of Bitcoin, mined back in 2009.

Howells, who took legal action against the council, argued for the right to excavate the site or be compensated for his loss. He even proposed using AI-powered scanning technology to locate the hard drive without cost to taxpayers. However, a judge dismissed his case in January, ruling that there was "no realistic prospect" of success. The council maintained that digging up the landfill would cause significant environmental damage, making recovery efforts impossible under current regulations.

The lost Bitcoin remains part of a larger "digital graveyard" of missing BTC, which some experts estimate accounts for up to 13% of the total supply—around 3 million coins. Meanwhile, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has speculated that future advancements in quantum computing could one day unlock Bitcoin trapped in lost wallets. If that ever happens, it could shake the market by reintroducing massive amounts of previously inaccessible Bitcoin into circulation.