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    Inside the Russian company mining bitcoin in Ethiopia – BBC Africa



    Inside the Russian company mining bitcoin in Ethiopia – BBC Africa

    Ethiopia is fast becoming a haven for Bitcoin miners.
    A Russian company has set up operations just outside the capital, Addis Ababa, taking advantage of cheap renewable energy. The government says it a smart way to earn revenue and expand power access.
    But with nearly half of Ethiopia in darkness, critics question whether the bitcoin boom will be felt across the country.
    So how much does the host country benefit, and could the vast amounts of power consumed be better used elsewhere?

    🎙️ Jewel Kiruingi
    🎥 Amensisa Negera
    🎬 Claire Muthinji
    🎞️ Simon Zuma

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    View 40 Comments

    40 Comments

    1. @GManzi673 on

      The extent to which there is negative or anti-Russian propaganda being spat out of every British institution at the moment is unprecedented. They are trying to make this country like 1930's Germany. The worrying thing is that people swallow it over and over again. Interesting that since Ethiopia joined BRICS that they have one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and they have just successfully built the GERD dam, and that Bitcoin is one of the reasons that allows it to do so without being enslaved to Dollars. By next year, they will be the major electricity supplier to all their border nations.

    5. @Worldvax on

      The public needs electricity but the gov also needs money to fund the infrastructure; I get both sides of the argument. If the government does what it claims to do with the money, I think it’s not a bad idea until at least the country is fully self sufficient when it comes to building infrastructures.

    8. @leulgizaw8178 on

      Why link this to Russia, all of them, The U.S, China … are already operating here in the "water Tower of Africa"… Don't worry about our Hustle, worry about your own!

    9. @addisu3636 on

      We need the FX. We also need the electricity to power our homes, industries, and hospitals. Balancing the trade-off between generating income from bitcoin operations and ensuring adequate electricity access for our people is essential. Recently, understanding the pressure, the government is considering to restrict new licenses for entrants into the bitcoin business.

    11. @bayewkkebede1846 on

      It seems the government has two choices, either to sell the electricity to the bitcoin miners or to provide to the public in need. I can see that selling the power will have good income in terms of generating foreign currency however the miners will not create any job opportunity where us if the government provide the power to the public and to other industries they will create job opportunity and also generate foreign currency from exports. Unless the government can increase the price of electricity on the miners other wise the country is losing huge amount of investment due to lack of electricity for manufacturers.

    12. @beenz8114 on

      USING ELEMNTERY MATHS CALCULATION THIS FACILITY ROUGHLY GENRAT THIS AMOUNT OF FOREIGN CURRENCY (6$dollars×365 days×10000machines= 20,622,500$ )N.B the number of the machines is a rough estimation.

    13. @achamyeleshfikre2043 on

      I do not oppose the mining of the bitcoin , but it should allowed to the Ethiopian people to. And the power of the electric first should be addressed to the nation who helped the government for the development of the GERD.

    14. @RockfordFiles74 on

      The miners are buying up the energy that would be wasted. So the government is getting extra revenue it would not otherwise get. BTC miners are constantly looking for what is called "stranded energy" and this is a classic example, but it not very well explained in this video.

    19. @speaktruth4169 on

      Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) will begin phasing out crypto mining in the country, after internal projections showed the sector could absorb a third of the nation’s electricity supply this year.
      They have already halted new licenses. This news is a bit too late.

    21. @MusM-kz3ex on

      Can’t power the rest of the country but enough power for bitcoin 😕 and only selected companies can operate bitcoin in Ethiopia , where is the competition and free market

    26. @ZedInvest on

      Saw that too ; Russia mining in Ethiopia shows how global BTC strategy’s getting. While the big players are going cross-border, I’ve been watching smaller moves like the $BLOCK listing on BingX with a listing carnival. It’s interesting how projects are shifting toward stablecoin ecosystems like USD1 in the middle of all this.

    29. @ЭдикПлотченко on

      Kept bumping into comments about Nixorus books, everyone saying theyre dangerously honest and almost banned-level info. Eventually, I caved and checked it out. Theyre right—this stuff hits different. Its weirdly addictive, probably because it feels like knowledge youre not supposed to find.

    35. @MohaAb-u7o on

      Kenya's Chalbi desert could be a game changer for Kenya also. Abundance sunlight throughout the year, good for photovoltaic power plants that don't need Genset back ups.

    37. @IBEWUNION1983 on

      The electrical infrastructure in Ethiopia is inferior. Therefore, allowing this proves that PM Abiy is another bozo that will set Ethiopia back another 50 years.

    38. @lovepeace7999 on

      The government doesn't care about the people. It needs the dollar just to purchase weapons. Today, even the people who live in the capital don't have power most of the days in week.

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