3 Words You Didn’t Expect to See Together: Bitcoin, Castle, Estonia

A Finn who made a fortune in Bitcoins and silver has purchased a 15th century manor in the north of Estonia with the hopes of turning it into an international Bitcoin supercenter.

That sentence sounds just as nuts when you read it aloud.

Risto Pietila has big plans for Malla Manor, which was first built in 1443 then rebuilt twice in the following centuries along the Baltic Sea in the northeast of present-day Estonia.

“While there are other budding centers of Bitcoin activity, and embassies in each of the great cities of the planet, this grand edifice stands unique as a philosophical philanthropic institution removed from the busy business of city commerce and provides a gathering nexus for the Bitcoin community to indulge in a more organic lifestyle,” the Business Forum Journal writes.

It is unclear what any of that actually means. Pietila himself runs a silver vault in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn.

Relevant Caveats

What Pietila actually plans to do with this huge manor is still apparently up in the air. In the meantime, here are three details that add to the overall weirdness of this story.

1. Pietila refers to himself as the “Vassal of the Mighty Goat” on the Bitcointalk.org forum.
2. The Business Forum Journal opted to go with this headline for the story: “Grand Castle Malla Becomes the Bitcoin Supernode Perpetual Conference Center.”
3. The journal’s actual website looks like something on Geocities from 1998.