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Bitcoin mining in Africa is emerging as a pivotal force for electrification, with various projects leveraging local energy resources to create mutually beneficial relationships. Key initiatives include hydroelectric-powered mining in Virunga National Park and QRB Labs in Ethiopia, highlighting the continent's potential for decentralized and sustainable Bitcoin operations.
As we already established, Bitcoin mining in Africa is the story to pay attention to at the moment. The new El Salvador, if you will. And in this second article about the subject, Blink will show you why. Each one of the projects we will feature takes a slightly different approach, but the goal is the same: To use Bitcoin mining to finance Africa’s electrification. This is a symbiotic relationship, though. Bitcoin isn’t charity, the ecosystem looks for incentives and win-win situations. What do the miners get in return?
Let’s go to Jesse for a quick explanation, “Bitcoin Mining will grow. Hashrate will go up. That also means competition in the network will grow. To stay competitive, miners have to secure ever-cheaper power.” Miners get better prices by building new power plants and using their excess electricity. As long as that relationship benefits both parties, the possibilities are endless.
This is a good time to reintroduce this series’ guests:
And to make it even more exciting, this time we’ll add:
Let’s ease into it and start our exploration in familiar territory.
In Blink’s first article about Bitcoin mining in Africa, we introduced “the world-famous Virunga National Park in the Congo” as “one of the most dangerous places in the world.”
“Several guerrilla armies are fighting for terrain and resources, using the natural flora and fauna as cover. According to The Technology Review, the Park’s handlers have built three massive hydroelectric power stations in “Matebe, Mutwanga, and Luviro; a fourth is under construction.” The main idea is to give people electricity so that they stop using wood and coal for their energy needs”
Jesse, who has direct access to the protagonists of the Bitcoin mining in Africa story through the HashrateUp podcast, adds color to our depiction of the Virunga National Park:
“They are mining off of a hydro plant that was once built and financed by the EU government through government debt and "development aid." After COVID, there is less to no demand for local power use from tourism, and now the mine adds significantly to the revenue of the park. They are also drying chocolate in the park with excess heat from Bitcoin mining.”
That’s a Big Block Green Services project, and its CEO Seb Gouspillou confirmed Blink that “the drying by mining is opening now.” The world will have its first Bitcoin-dried chocolate soon enough. They are also drying fruit, “testing for one year at the Luviro plant” in the park, and trying to “develop the concept in Congo Brazza and building the infrastructure.”
The second project Jesse told Blink about directly relates to our previous article, “QRB Labs in Ethiopia is not running yet. They will be mining mining at larger scale on substations in Ethiopia.” Will QRB Labs get cheap energy from the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam or GERD? They certainly will, according to their website:
“We offer data center services to international clients, focusing on location-agnostic high-energy computations such as Bitcoin mining, and AI model training. QRB is a customer of Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) and procures surplus hydroelectric power, commonly referred to as “stranded” energy, to operate scalable modular data centers.”
The HashrateUP podcast interviewed Nemo Semret and explored the GERD subject and the QRB Labs story in detail. “As Bitcoiners we should want hashrate to be widely distributed around the world,” Semret said, “and if it grows in Africa, it’s really good for geographic diversity.”
Like most projects in this post, QRB Labs is a Green Africa Mining Alliance member.
Let’s pass the mic to Janet Maingi to explain exactly what this organization is:
“The Green Africa Mining Alliance (GAMA) was started by miners working across Africa, from Nigeria and Kenya to DR Congo and Ethiopia. Its purpose is to bring together the renewable bitcoin mining companies in Africa to increase the geographic spread of bitcoin mining, assist new miners to get going, push electrification further to the edges in Africa, and create a body of knowledge, research, and assets for policymakers to better understand this industry.”
That brings us to a very different but extremely exciting Bitcoin mining in Africa project.
Another member of the Green Africa Mining Alliance, this company takes a whole different approach to the problem. “Trojan Mining is mining off of power that was allocated to a community nearby a power generation facility for free. They built their own containers and repair centers and are a testament to what lengths Bitcoin Miners will go to, to find cheap power,” Jesse told Blink. “They are heavily involved in the community,” he added.
To further elaborate on that point, let’s quote Bitcoin Core contributor Abubakar Nur Khalil discussing Trojan Mining:
“They also aim to draw in participation from the youths in the local community, teach them about bitcoin mining, and have them directly benefit from their activities, including through employment, to give back to the community.”
In that same article, Abubakar gives us extremely useful background information to understand exactly what’s happening in the country:
“The recent announcement in June by the Nigerian Federal Government under the Electricity Act that allows state governments to generate their electricity and manage their energy infrastructure independent of the national grid, it is now more convenient and economically viable to set up mining operations in states with abundant energy.”
The HashrateUP podcast interviewed S. Yassar, “who shares his inspiring story of how he went from crypto trading and forex to expanding to a two-megawatt mining operation.” From zero to hero, if you will.
According to Big Block Green Services’ Seb Gouspillou, “the next country, for us, is Congo Brazza. Not a big country, not a big production of renewable energy, so few extra capacities. However, it’s enough to build an efficient mining. We open the farm in October.” It’s in these facilities that BBGS will try to develop the drying-fruit-with-excess-heat from Bitcoin mining project.
The company is already hard at work, as this exclusive video Gouspillou shared with Blink clearly shows: congo.mov
In a January interview on the Stephan Livera podcast, Seb Gouspillou introduced two BBGS’ works in progress: 1.- A mine near a wind farm in Mauritania, a “prime location for wind energy production due to its consistent wind patterns.” 2.- A geothermal-powered Bitcoin mine in Kenya.
Blink asked for an update on those and this was Gouspillou’s answer, “The wind mining project in Mauritania is on stand-by, but Kenya has started to mine its geothermal energy. Not with me, I brought the idea but couldn't get along with the operator.”
Let the record show that getting these Bitcoin mining in Africa projects off the ground is extremely hard and there are no guarantees.
Decentralization is crucial to Bitcoin’s success. With that idea in mind, Gridless and GAMA are trying another approach altogether. Maingi explains, “The projects that we find most exciting are the ones where an industrious entrepreneur finds a way to power a handful of Bitcoin miners and starts on the journey of securing their own financial freedom.”
To help those small miners, both organizations created the Seed Program. It works like this:
“There will be an application form and a vetting process, and upon completion of this the new miner will get access to 5 used, but tested and reliable, ASICs to begin mining. They will still have to pay for these miners, but at a heavy discount, and will also have to pay for shipping and clearing to their own location.”
As Blink already told you, Bitcoin is not a charity. Anybody who wants to participate has to show Proof-Of-Work. “Upon proof of hashrate for a minimum of 3 months, they will be given access to up to 10 more ASICs at the same discounted rate.”
To clear possible confusion, Maingi explains how Gridless and the GAMA can afford the Seed Program:
“We are fortunate to have the support of companies like Luxor and Block to make this program possible. We are very much of the mindset that we would rather see 100,000 mining sites with 10 miners rather than 10 sites with 100,000 miners. The Bitcoin network needs this decentralization.”
Blink couldn’t agree more.
To finish this off, let’s pass the mic around to our guests and ask them to predict the future. First off is BitcoinBirr’s Kal Kassa:
“With the grace of God I see no reason Ethiopian miners can’t contribute 3-5 gigawatts of electricity to the Bitcoin hash rate within 1-2 years. I also hope to see the country using revenues from Ethiopian Electric Power to better the distribution and transmission of Ethiopian Electric Utility. It’s a shame we have so much stranded energy, but are unable to provide 50% of Ethiopians with a light bulb in their homes. Of course, off-grid solutions may also be necessary.”
To mix it up, HashrateUp’s Jesse hit us with a prediction that applies to the whole Bitcoin mining industry, not only to Africa:
“Bitcoin Mining will become an integral part and tool for utilities and transmission operators to balance power. Too much demand? Turn down the Bitcoin Mining, Too much supply? Turn the Bitcoin mining on. This will happen automatically and, as competition in the network increases, older machines with 10% uptime will be those in substations turning on and off. Maybe we will even see ASICs designed for that special use case, where hashboards and chips are designed to be robust and frequently turned on and off.”
To finish this off, Gridless’s Janet Maingi brings us back to the continent:
“The Africa Bitcoin Mining Summit is an initiative of GAMA. It’s an event for bitcoin miners, by bitcoin miners in Africa. Instead of a talk-shop, the program was designed to be more interactive with discussions, workshops, visiting a bitcoin mining site, and plenty of social networking events. The first event happened in Kenya last year, and the next one is in Ethiopia in early October.”
As Blink told you in this series’ first article, regarding Bitcoin mining in Africa, at the moment, all roads lead to Ethiopia.
