From Contraband to Cash Flow? 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 1000’s of confiscated mining machines and surplus hydroelectric energy.
What Does This Entail?
In a primary‑of‑its‑variety transfer, Paraguay state energy firm is about to change 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 follow, ANDE will host and personal the mining operations. Instead of exporting that power at low, treaty‑outlined costs, the utility will route a part of it into Bitcoin mining services it controls. Morphware will act as a technical advisor relatively than a speculative accomplice: 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 present utility buildings situated subsequent to substations, which could be transformed into primary mining services with air flow, transformers, distribution items, and correct metering.
Seizing Background
This choice follows a collection of nationwide raids since early 2024, as ANDE moved towards unmetered and fraudulent high‑voltage connections utilized by unlawful miners. Most of the machines going into this program had been seized between May 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 high‑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 shut to 30,000 items.
Another State Turning To Bitcoin
Paraguay’s transfer slots right into a small however rising group of states that seem to be attempting to flip 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. Further east, Bhutan’s sovereign wealth fund has quietly operated hydro‑powered mining since not less than 2019, utilizing surplus electrical energy from its dams to accumulate Bitcoin on the dominion’s stability 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: maintain the power home, personal the infrastructure, and let the state, not simply personal miners, seize the upside.
Cover picture from ChatGPT, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview