From Contraband to Money Stream? Paraguay To Mine Bitcoin With 30,000 Seized Rigs

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From Contraband to Money Stream? Paraguay To Mine Bitcoin With 30,000 Seized Rigs

Paraguay’s state‑owned electrical energy monopoly, Administración Nacional de Electricidad (ANDE), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with infrastructure agency Morphware to launch a authorities‑run Bitcoin mining program powered by hundreds of confiscated mining machines and surplus hydroelectric energy.

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In a primary‑of‑its‑sort transfer, Paraguay state energy firm is about to develop into a Bitcoin miner. ANDE has signed a proper settlement with Morphware to to construct a state‑run mining program that makes use of two issues the nation already has in abundance: seized mining rigs and low cost hydroelectric energy from the Itaipú dam.

In apply, ANDE will host and personal the mining operations. As a substitute of exporting that power at low, treaty‑outlined costs, the utility will route a part of it into Bitcoin mining amenities it controls. Morphware will act as a technical advisor quite than a speculative companion: according to Morphware founder and CEO Kenso Trabing, as a result of ANDE has no expertise mining Bitcoin, the corporate’s function will likely be “an advisory one.

The pilot section will plug in about 1,500 seized miners at current utility buildings situated subsequent to substations, which will be transformed into primary mining amenities with air flow, transformers, distribution items, and correct metering.

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Seizing Background

This resolution follows a collection of nationwide raids since early 2024, as ANDE moved towards unmetered and fraudulent excessive‑voltage connections utilized by unlawful miners.  A lot of the machines going into this program had been seized between Could and June 2024, when authorities intensified inspections in mining hotspots.

In Salto del Guairá alone, ANDE confiscated 2,738 mining rigs after detecting an unmetered excessive‑load connection price roughly 1.1 billion guaraníes (round 146,000 {dollars}) in stolen energy each month, alongside dozens of comparable operations that pushed the whole stockpile of seized ASICs near 30,000 items.

One other State Turning To Bitcoin

Paraguay’s transfer slots right into a small however rising group of states that seem like making an attempt to show power coverage into hash fee. El Salvador has already folded Bitcoin into its official toolkit, pointing geothermal power from state‑run plants into mining facilities and including these cash to a authorities‑managed BTC stockpile alongside its “volcano bond” ambitions, as reported by our sister website Bitcoinist. Additional east, Bhutan’s sovereign wealth fund has quietly operated hydro‑powered mining since at the very least 2019, utilizing surplus electrical energy from its dams to build up Bitcoin on the dominion’s steadiness sheet and, more recently, to back new digital‑asset and “mindfulness city” projects.

Paraguay’s ANDE–Morphware experiment is the hydro‑wealthy, Latin American model of that very same playbook: hold the power home, personal the infrastructure, and let the state, not simply non-public miners, seize the upside.

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