Bitcoin Devours the Electricity Meant for the World’s Poor
Crypto mines and data centers overwhelm the hydropower projects built to lift nations out of poverty.
As much as 30% of the power generated from projects like the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is going to crypto.
Photographer: Amanuel Sileshi/AFP/Getty
For seven decades, poor countries wanting to get rich have turned again and again to dams.
For the post-independence leaders of Egypt and Ghana in the 1950s, hydroelectricity and sovereignty were inextricably linked. Building vast irrigation and electricity projects across the Nile and the Volta was a prerequisite if they were to catch up with their former colonial masters. That association still holds: Four of the six biggest users of hydro today are Brazil, Russia, India and China, the BRIC nations synonymous with the idea of rapid economic development.