Landfill Bitcoin Miners in Pakistan? A Viral Claim, No Source

Key takeaways

• A post by the X account @BitcoinArchive on 29 September 2026 claims Pakistan "is putting Bitcoin miners on landfills across the country". It links no source.
• We found no government announcement of any such project in the official sources we checked on 30 September 2026.
• The nearest real statement is from July 2025: a reporter's paraphrase that the government was "exploring" mining with methane. No landfill was mentioned.
• Lahore's landfill methane project is real, but RUDA's own description of it does not mention Bitcoin, crypto or mining.

The claim

At 20:48 UTC on 29 September 2026, the X account @BitcoinArchive posted: "JUST IN: Pakistan is putting Bitcoin miners on landfills across the country. Free methane gas will power the rigs." When we checked on 30 September it had been viewed about 42,600 times. The post cites nothing.

Our verdict: unsupported

We could not find any official announcement that Pakistan is installing Bitcoin miners on landfills, in one city or "across the country". We cannot prove that no such plan exists. What we can say is where we looked and what was there.

What we checked

Where the claim seems to come from

Two real things appear to have been joined together.

A 2025 remark about methane. On 26 July 2025, Cointelegraph published an interview with Bilal Bin Saqib, who now chairs PVARA. After reporting the plan to use surplus electricity, the article adds one sentence: "The government is also exploring the potential to mine BTC with runoff energy from methane and other excess or stranded power sources, he added." That is the reporter's paraphrase, not a direct quote. It names no landfill, no site and no project, and it says "exploring".

A landfill project with no Bitcoin in it. At Mehmood Booti in Lahore, the Ravi Urban Development Authority is turning a dump of about 43 acres, which holds roughly 13 million tons of waste accumulated since 1997, into a solar park and urban forest. Arab News reported on 26 March 2025 that the Rs5 billion project captures methane to earn carbon credits. RUDA's page says it uses "gas flaring technology to capture methane gas from the landfill". Neither source connects the project to Bitcoin.

Crypto Briefing, which examined the same claim on 29 September 2026, reached the same conclusion: both initiatives are real, and no confirmed project joins them.

What Pakistan has actually said about mining

The plan on the record is about the power grid, not rubbish dumps. On 25 May 2025 the finance minister announced that Pakistan would allocate 2,000 megawatts of surplus electricity to Bitcoin mining and AI data centres. The IMF later refused the subsidised tariff that would have made that power cheap, as we reported in Pakistan offered miners 2,000MW; the IMF said no to cheap power.

In December 2025, The Nation quoted Bilal Bin Saqib saying mining would begin "within the next few weeks" and that equipment "could be installed at power plants to utilise surplus electricity". Power plants, in other words. PVARA's news page and the finance ministry's press releases, checked on 30 September 2026, carry no announcement that a mining operation has started.

Could it work?

As engineering, yes. Landfills release methane, and burning it in a generator to run mining machines is an established idea. The US miner Marathon Digital announced a landfill-methane mining pilot in November 2023. Pakistan has large, old dumps and a government interested in both methane capture and mining. That is why the claim sounds plausible. Plausible is not the same as announced.

What this means for Pakistani users

• Do not invest on the strength of this post. "Government-backed landfill mining" is the kind of claim that mining schemes and cloud-mining apps borrow to look official. No such programme appears in the official sources we checked.
• Mining other people's money needs a licence; mining your own does not. Under regulation 4(6) of PVARA's 2026 regulations, pure mining "by itself" needs no licence. Mining operations that involve customers' assets or funds do, under a "Mining Related Virtual Asset Services" category with a minimum paid-up capital of Rs500 million. As of 30 September 2026, PVARA has licensed no one.
• Check the source before sharing. A "JUST IN" with no link, about a policy no ministry has published, deserves a second look.

What we're watching

• Any statement from PVARA, the Pakistan Crypto Council, RUDA or the Lahore Waste Management Company that links landfill gas to mining. If one appears, we will update this page and say so.
• Whether any mining operation under the 2,000MW allocation is publicly confirmed.

If you can point us to an official document showing landfill mining has been approved, tell us and we will correct this piece.

Sources

• @BitcoinArchive, post on X, 29 September 2026, 20:48 UTC; viewed about 42,600 times when checked on 30 September 2026.
• Cointelegraph, "Demographics will 'leapfrog' Bitcoin adoption in Pakistan — Bilal Bin Saqib", 26 July 2025.
• Ravi Urban Development Authority, "From Landfill to Urban Forest: RUDA's 'Waste to Wonder' Revitalization of Mehmood Booti", read 30 September 2026.
• Arab News, "Punjab set to launch Pakistan's first carbon credit project at Lahore dumping site", 26 March 2025.
• PVARA, News & Updates, checked 30 September 2026.
• Ministry of Finance, press releases, checked 30 September 2026.
• The Nation, "Crypto mining to begin in Pakistan within weeks: Bilal Bin Saqib", 18 December 2025.
• Crypto Briefing, "Pakistan explores Bitcoin mining with surplus energy, but landfill methane link remains unconfirmed", 29 September 2026.
• CoinDesk, "Bitcoin Miner Marathon Tests BTC Mining With Methane Gas From Waste Landfill", 2 November 2023.
• Pakistan Virtual Asset Services Regulations, 2026, Schedule-I and regulation 4(6).