~snip~
Maybe, or maybe he just wants to put an end to this whole story with building something on top of it

It's the council the one who wants to build something on top of it, not him!
He basically wants to own it to try his luck searching for it, day after day...
It seems that he is losing, or already lost, his mind over this.
Bitcoin is like that, it can affect people massively.
It's looks like that, he seems to be not getting over it, losing millions and so he try to salvage it by buying the landscape. And with that he seems to be losing his mind as well. And it's becoming ridiculous, that it will cost him everything.
Or what if he finds his HDD but then it's corrupt and cannot be recovered anymore?
Or it could be just rotten away and you can't even identify it as a HDD but another piece of junk?