$FNI
Fading QuicklySnapshot Window: 2026-07-06 13:30 UTC · ← Back to Crypto Overview
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Al Jazeera reports the all in cost of of mining one Bitcoin in Ethiopia is only $20,000 due to abundant hydropower [Spoken audio]: Outskirts of Addis Ababa, thousands of servers work on solving complex mathematical challenges that will be rewarded with bitcoins. This mining is energy intensive. Here they're using surplus electricity from Ethiopia's dams. The bitcoin mining has a great advantage, the capability to consume a huge amount of energy to deploy fast and to do it very close to the source, like for example here near the substation. After many years, when the distribution grid deployed, other industries come. Probably the power will be redistributed. Ethiopia's recently inaugurated Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, or GERD, will more than double the country's electricity output. But Ethiopia doesn't yet have the distribution network to take this power to the half of the population that doesn't have electricity. The idea is that the fees paid by the Bitcoin miners to use the surplus energy, some 220 million dollars worth in the last 12 months will go towards funding the expansion of the grid. The government had a target of 2030 for universal access to electricity, but now says meeting that will be extremely challenging. Until the people have full access and the economy starts to consume all this power, we are using Bitcoin for transition, it's not a permanent endeavor. So they're not getting preference over domestic industry or... No way. No way. Yeah. No way. The cost of mining won Bitcoin in Ethiopia is about $20,000 when hardware, staffing and other costs added along with the cheap electricity. But that Bitcoin then sells for around $114,000 at current prices. It's very profitable because 80% of the operating expenses for a Bitcoin miner is related to electricity. And in parts of the European Union, they're looking at 15 or 20 cents kilowatt hour. So to come to Ethiopia and get three cents, or a four cents, I think is extremely lucrative. We'll see. For now, the price of Bitcoin is climbing and has become less volatile. As more countries notably the U.S. become more receptive to digital assets like Bitcoin, then Ethiopia's appeal as a crypto mining hub is likely to grow. Bernard Smith, Al Jazeera, Addis Ababa
