{"id":78221,"date":"2026-09-15T23:01:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T23:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/ethiopias-bitcoin-mining-boom-just-ran-into-a-water-problem\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T23:01:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T23:01:46","slug":"ethiopias-bitcoin-mining-boom-just-ran-into-a-water-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/ethiopias-bitcoin-mining-boom-just-ran-into-a-water-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia\u2019s Bitcoin Mining Boom Just Ran Into a Water Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News )<\/b><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"@container mb-[25px] rounded-sm overflow-clip py-0.5 pr-0.5 pl-2.5 bg-success-100\">\n<div class=\"flex flex-col gap-m overflow-clip rounded-[6px] !bg-success-10 p-3 @[420px]:p-m\">\n<h2 class=\"m-0 flex items-center gap-s text-[19px] !text-[#1c1c1c] md:text-[20px]\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"16\" height=\"10\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 10\" fill=\"none\" class=\"shrink-0 text-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M1 1.5h14\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><path d=\"M1 8.5h10\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-width=\"2.5\" stroke-linecap=\"round\"\/><\/svg><span>Key Takeaways<\/span><\/h2>\n<ul class=\"m-0 flex list-none flex-col gap-m pl-0\">\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) cut bitcoin miners to 23% of contracted power after reservoir inflows fell 20%.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">Ethiopia\u2019s miners used roughly a third of electricity while generating 35% of EEP revenue.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"m-0 flex items-start gap-s !text-[#434248]\"><span class=\"mt-2 size-2 shrink-0 rounded-full bg-success-100\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><span class=\"text-body\">EEP will reassess miners in October, with deeper cuts possible if reservoir levels stay low.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Ethiopia\u2019s Bitcoin Miners Were Built on Water<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/bitcoin-mining-powers-ethiopias-55m-surplus-energy-revenue-report\/\">Ethiopia found a clever customer<\/a> for electricity that it couldn\u2019t always sell elsewhere. Basically, bitcoin miners with warehouses full of machines and an appetite for cheap hydropower. Then the weather changed. El Ni\u00f1o cut inflows into the country\u2019s dams by about 20%, and Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) began rationing electricity at a rapid pace.<\/p>\n<p>Miners went from receiving 75% of their contracted supply to 50%, and now they\u2019re getting just 23%. Bloomberg reporter Fasika Tadesse <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-09-15\/ethiopia-cuts-bitcoin-mining-power-to-23-over-hydroelectricity-shortage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">was the first to report on the cuts<\/a>, citing EEP CEO Ashebir Balcha. The contracts promised miners at least 98% of their agreed electricity, so operators have effectively watched three-quarters of their expected power disappear while homes and factories moved to the front of the line.<\/p>\n<h2>A Third of the Electricity, Then a 75% Cut<\/h2>\n<p>The numbers explain why the decision is such a big deal. Ethiopia has agreements with 39 distinct mining companies, with 31 already operating, and miners have grown to consume roughly a third of the country\u2019s electricity. They also became fantastic customers for EEP. Bloomberg reported that miners accounted for roughly 35% of the utility\u2019s revenue, paying in foreign currency while taking advantage of electricity that had been available for around 3.2 cents per kilowatt-hour.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_847954\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-847954\" style=\"width:2334px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-847954\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ethiopia reportedly commands around 2.4% of the global hashrate. Image source: hashrateindex.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In one local accounting, data miners paid 50.4 billion birr last year, more than Ethiopia\u2019s national distribution utility paid EEP. Interestingly, the arrangement almost worked too well: cheap surplus electricity attracted miners, miners brought hard currency, and EEP recorded its first profitable year. Ethiopia attracted miners like the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/phoenix-group-activates-30mw-hydropower-backed-crypto-mining-facility-in-ethiopia\/\">Abu Dhabi cryptocurrency mining company, Phoenix Group<\/a>, and others, including Canaan, Bitfufu, Bitdeer, Dahab Miners, and Sazmining. The catch was that much of the electricity depended on water continuing to arrive.<\/p>\n<h2>One Bitcoin, Nearly 15,000 Ethiopian Households<\/h2>\n<p>Hydropower supplies roughly 95% of Ethiopia\u2019s electricity, making falling reservoirs hard to shrug off. Inflows into the country\u2019s 21 dams dropped around 20%, including at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), the centerpiece of Ethiopia\u2019s power system. GERD alone produced 18.3 terawatt-hours last year, roughly 52% of the country\u2019s electricity, while EEP said declining reservoir levels have cost some generating units as much as 50 megawatts each.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/africa.businessinsider.com\/local\/markets\/ethiopia-cuts-power-to-bitcoin-miners-by-75-as-el-nino-dries-up-hydropower\/08xjvjc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Business Insider Africa estimated<\/a> that mining one bitcoin in Ethiopia consumes roughly 6.4 million kilowatt-hours, equivalent to the annual electricity use of about 14,950 average Ethiopian households. With about half the country\u2019s population still lacking electricity access, miners suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of a fairly straightforward political calculation.<\/p>\n<h2>October Decides Whether the Squeeze Gets Worse<\/h2>\n<p>EEP plans to reassess the situation in October, and miners aren\u2019t necessarily out of the woods yet. If reservoir inflows don\u2019t improve, Balcha explained that mining companies could lose even more electricity, while power exports to neighboring countries could also face restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>The financial hit has already started, with EEP cutting its electricity-export revenue forecast by 40% to $279 million. Ethiopia was attractive precisely because abundant hydropower offered miners inexpensive electricity while generating foreign currency for the country, but that bargain becomes harder to maintain when the supposed surplus disappears.<\/p>\n<p>As far as the Bitcoin network is concerned, Ethiopia represents only a low-single-digit share of global hashrate, so this isn\u2019t a network crisis. <a href=\"https:\/\/data.hashrateindex.com\/bitcoin-compute-data\/global-hashrate-heatmap\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hashrateindex.com\u2019s heatmap<\/a> shows Ethiopia with around 2.4% of the global computing power, or roughly 23 exahash per second (EH\/s).<\/p>\n<p>For miners who built operations around cheap Ethiopian hydro, though, October could determine whether their machines get more electricity or spend even more time sitting quietly.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.bitcoin.com\/mining\/ethiopias-bitcoin-mining-boom-just-ran-into-a-water-problem\/\">Source link <\/a><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Originally posted on : Bitcoin News ) Key Takeaways Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) cut bitcoin miners to 23% of contracted power after reservoir inflows fell 20%. Ethiopia\u2019s miners used roughly a third of electricity while generating 35% of EEP revenue. EEP will reassess miners in October, with deeper cuts possible if reservoir levels stay low. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":78222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowdfundjunction.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}