Big news: Ethiopia opens its first Bitcoin mining facility

Gotta celebrate the first of anything. This is a small win for the folks in Ethiopia, but definitely not the last one. Today, on X, a user named @KalKassa posted some cool pics from their visit to the site and substation of Ethiopia's very first bitcoin mining setup. Sounds like this project is backed by GAMA Green Africa Mining Alliance. Seeing Bitcoin hit these amazing milestones brings a smile to my face. What do you all think about this development?

I'm happy bitcoin adoption's increasing each day like you it brings me joy. It's a strong initiative I'm hoping it's going to be successful. Reading about how Ethiopia's made it's first substation for mining's a historical moment but I don't know how many miners live there. How's it's going to impact mining in Ethiopia if most ppl don't have money to buy mining gear?

Any good news about progress made with bitcoins in any place in the world deserves celebration because it always means that we are getting one step closer to the future of bitcoins that we all want to come so soon. Bitcoin has a good status in Ethiopia, so it is natural to be attractive for cryptocurrency activities by miners. I was wondering how they intend to power it but then I saw this source It means if these renewable energy are well harnessed, there will enough energy for mining activity.

In general, the real difficulty is more like finding stable electricity in sufficient volumes, rather than buying ASICs. If they do really have access to large quantities of energy as Rruchi man quoted, I think there will be no shortage of candidates to run ASICs!

The renewable energy sources in the midst of bitcoin acceptance in a country is a heaven for miners to start and run their operations. Such was the case with Kazakisthan too until the authorities cracked down on them. Just be sure to follow up this user and see how much they actually mine and how they scale the operation, its not uncommon for them to suddenly ghost and shut down operations giving any investors a slap on their faces. These entrepreneurs always give me the chills, have been watching them come and go for several years now. They will often start the process and then exit in the background without any public knowing. Offtopic: Suggest the OP to adopt using nitter.net to allow everyone to read stuff on twitter.com/ x.com without logging in - just replace that with nitter.net

So what could have been your suggestion to people like us who will love to see such things in our country too. I believe any development that will promote Bitcoin mining and Bitcoin in general will be adored by me and I won't hesitate to support it to my own country. But it is also imperative for me to see how sustainable such mining facilities can be especially for countries still battling with stable electricity. Although, we've got abundant wasted untapped electricity underway in the hydro and solar plants but we what we lack is majorly the capacity to transmit and distribute such electricity and more importantly, the ability to monitor the process. What do you suggest this facility can do for such country or state?

I see you are from Nigeria. Here are the things that are the good and bad about mining in your country Bad things : 1. Climate - the country is in a tropical rainforest zone which equals to humid weather and high temperatures. Means more cooling cost and labour exhaustion at mining facility. 2. Crime rate - Your manual labours are going to steal off your miners. Not everyone is hoping for teamwork being dreamwork, sadly. 3. Government stance - They might crack down on mining any point in the future. Good things: 1. High Morale - Local enthusiasm about crypto is good here, giving everyone the inspiration to work and do something new. 2. Cheap labour - self-explainatory. I live in a similar country and mining never happened properly here. I dont see much in the mining sector for my fellow Nigerian members. Maybe in future things may change.

I don't know how accurate Salary Explorer shows Ethiopia but ASICs aren't cheap. I hope there won't be a shortage of candidates so they've got entrepreneurial spirit but when ppl in a country which isn't ahead in economics want to start mining the gear's he biggest expense.

Seeing people developing mining facilities is a great thing for Bitcoin. I'm really happy to see it. But here is a question that I want to ask people who have been mining for a long time. Mining is illegal even owning any kind of cryptocurrency is illegal in my country so I am not quite sure and that's why I'm asking. We know the Bitcoin halving event is getting closer day by day. And the reward for mining will become half when that happens. So my question is, is it profitable to start mining right before halving? The reward is going to be half of what we used to get, and those mining rigs will become less powerful (not so sure about this, correct me if I am wrong) because of the difficulty adjustment. So my other question is, is it going to be profitable to start after this event with more powerful component or it stays the same even after the event? If anyone can answer this, it will be really helpful for me. Thank you.

Happy to see this response of yours. I think I agree with all the things you mentioned above and I have the same perspective to them. However,  this point above, I have a slightly different opinion about this. Although, crime is one issue that have gained some prominence in this side of the world, however, that should not affect the mining facilities as you are not expected to keep the facility in an environment prone to security issues. Depending on where and how one handles, monitor or situate the facility and that will greatly determine the safety of the facilities including the manual labours. Every other thing is accurate in my viewpoint but, going forward, what do you think we can do to make these things happen and better especially as we live in a crypto inclined society now.

How will you be sure that the location you are mining from has minimal security issues? You would need a mining farm to be able to scale it enough in that level to be able to ROI in a few years. Most people get burnt out before that anyway. Hence you location will be big and conspicuous, enough to attract attention from police and crooks. Eventually you will find out that one fine morning your ASICs along with your hired labourers have vanished and the security guards you put in have also disappeared into thin air, because they were all working together to steal. A lot of things are needed, the list in endless and I am sure fellow members here can continue this even longer. But right now cybercrime is what I feel is most needed.

a fantastic development! i'm sure we will be seeing more of this in the future