Bitcoin on the bush: cryptographic mining brings power to rural areas

The roar of the Zambezi is deafening when millions of gallons of water crash through rocks and fall through the rapids.

But there is another sound that crosses the trees of the Zambian bush: the unmistakable acute groan of a bitcoin mine.

“It’s the sound of money!” Says a smiling Phillip Walton while examining the shipping container with 120 computers occupied through complex calculations that verify Bitcoin transactions.

In return, the network automatically rewards Bitcoin.

We are at the northwest end of Zambia near the border with the RDC, and of all Bitcoin mines that I have visited, this is the strangest.

Water and electronic equipment do not usually mix well, but it is precisely the proximity to the river that Bitcoiners has drawn here.

The Phillip mine is connected directly to a hydroelectric energy plant that channels part of the Zambezi torrent through huge turbines to generate continuous and clean electricity.

More important for Bitcoin Mining, it’s cheap.

So cheap that it made commercial sense for the Phillip company based in Kenia Gridless to drag its shipping container full of delicate Bitcoin mining computers through highlights full of potholes 14 hours from the closest main city to establish here.

Each machine earns around $ 5 (£ 3.90) per day. More if the price of the coins is high, less if it falls.

Occasionally, Phillip looks at his smart watch: the home screen showing the always changing wavy line of Bitcoin’s dollars.

At this time, it is around $ 80,000 per currency, but Phillip says they can obtain profits even when the Bitcoin value is lowered thanks to cheap electricity on the site and the association they have with the energy company.

“We recognized that to obtain a better mining economy, we needed to partner with the electric company here and give them an income participation. So the reason we are willing to come here somewhere, so it is remote, it allows us to obtain a cheaper power,” he says.

The Hydro -Power Zengamina plant is huge, but technically it is a mini grid, an independent power island for the local community.

It was built in the early 2000s thanks to $ 3 million collected from charity donations.

British-Zambian Daniel Rea directs the site after his missionary family directed the construction project, mainly to boost the local hospital.

Now it provides energy for around 15,000 people in the local area, but the project has not been able to reach the slow collection of the community.

Allowing the bitcoiners to establish a store here has been transformative for the business.

“Every day we were wasting more than half of the energy we could generate, which also meant that we are not winning that to meet our operational expenses. We need a great energy user in the area and that is where the association that changes the game with Gridless,” says Daniel.

The Bitcoin mine now represents about 30% of the plant’s revenues, which allows them to maintain low prices for the local city.

Bitcoin and their economy are, of course, far from people’s minds in zengamina.

The city itself is a few miles from the plant and includes not much more than a few dozen buildings similar to a shed that dot a cross.

Only a store has a fridge and a dozen children pile up around a community computer that turned to choose a song to leave, which makes adults make a grimace as they advance in their day.

Although the hydroelectric plant entered online in 2007, it took a few years more connecting it with the local city, and then more time to connect individual homes and businesses.

So, some people like Barber Damian are still enjoying the novelty of connecting only a year and a half.

“Until I had energy I had nothing and I couldn’t do anything. When I got energy, I bought everything at the same time.”

He is not joking. At night, his little barbershop is a lighthouse of power with a television that plays musical videos, ropes of Christmas lights and the buzz of his hair cut. Like the moths, young people spend their time in their barbershop like a youth shelter.

“Getting power has changed my life,” he smiles. “The money I am earning now of the barber is helping me to pay the school rates again.”

Hugging electricity is a commercial decision for Damian. At home he shares a bulb between the two rooms that make up the small house.

In another part of the people of the town, Tomb and Lucy Machayi sit at the crossroads seeing the world pass.

Like many young people, they are glued to their phones.

“Before the city had power, it was basically just the bush,” says Lucy.

They say that the small electricity that had released from small solar panels.

“Without a fridge, without television, without mobile phone network,” says Tumba.

“Electricity completely changed people’s lives here,” Lucy adds.

“We can load our phones, we have a network. We can communicate among us.”

Not many people here know or care about the Bitcoin mine that has played a role in helping the hydroelectric plant to keep things in operation.

But they will soon see while that container once again makes its way through the city on its way to another place.

Zengamina Hydro has assured a great investment to help them expand to more villages and join the national network.

Soon, the excess energy that the mine was reaping will be sold back to the national network and Bitcoin mining will no longer be profitable in zengamine.

Phillip and the team are optimistic about this and insist that this is good news. They will have had successful years here and, ultimately, they are happy to have helped Zengamina. E obtained an orderly gain in Bitcoin, of course.

The company says that there are many places with the so -called stranded energy in which they can complete its bitcoin mine next to it.

The network already has six sites like this in three different African countries.

To the north of Zengamina, another Bitcoin mine sorbe the excess energy of a hydroelectric plant led by the Virunga National Park in the Congo. He is helping to finance conservation projects, says the park.

But the network now plans an ambitious movement: build its own hydroelectric plants from scratch to mine for Bitcoin and bring electricity to rural areas.

The co -founder of the company, Janet Maingi, says that the company is occupied by raising dozens of millions of dollars for the project.

They are focusing on the so -called river hydroelectric models such as in Zengamina and the continent has a lot of “non -exploited hydroelectric potential,” she says.

“An consumer -driven adaptive energy model is essential for access to scalable, affordable and sustainable energy that meets the needs of African communities,” he explains.

The company is not a beneficial organization and believes that guaranteeing long -term economic viability for developers and investors can only be done through Bitcoin.

However, finding locations for a new plant or taking advantage of existing ones is the easy part.

The company still faces the resistance of some authorities and companies that see Bitcoin as a use of selfish and gray energy of energy that could otherwise be used by rural ones.

But the company insists that the incentive is always to sell to the highest buyer and that will always be the local community.

History tells us that without established incentives or rules, Bitcoin mining at scale can exert tension in public energy networks. In Kazakhstan, in 2020-2021, a mining boom increased the use of energy in the country by 7% before the government clenched and cut the wings of the flourishing industry.

In the USA. – The new Meca of Bitcoin Mining, conflicts between miners, local and residents have been common when electricity has a great demand.

Authorities have created agreements with some mining giants to ensure that they spend their warehouses full of computers at a time when the network needs to balance.

For example, the Greenidge gas energy plant in New York, which was renewed to the mine, Bitcoin had the mandate of rejecting mining in January to supply electricity to the network during a cold click.

Agreements as these must be widespread if the ambition of President Donald Trump so that Bitcoin is “extracted, coined and made in the US.” It must be achieved.

The environmental impact of the industry is also a great concern. It is estimated that Bitcoin Mining uses as much energy as a small country as Poland.

But according to researchers at the University of Cambridge, which makes annual estimates on the use of Bitcoin energy, there is a change in a more sustainable combination of energy.

Settings such as this zengamine are a small part of the general mining image.

But they are also a rare example of a controversial industry that creates much more than digital currencies.