Sazmining to Open Green Bitcoin Mining Facility in Paraguay, Tap Itaipu Dam

Sustainable Bitcoin mining platform Sazmining is increasing into South America with plans to leverage Paraguay’s Itaipu Dam, the startup introduced Thursday.

The agency’s facility is anticipated to come back on-line in September and can include mining rigs bought by Sazmining’s clients. The platform allows individuals to buy Bitcoin mining rigs, which Sazmining maintains and powers with 100% renewable vitality.

The Itaipu Dam, which is situated on the border of Brazil and Paraguay, was accomplished in 1991 and stretches almost 5 miles lengthy. Sazmining founder and CEO William Szamosszegi advised Decrypt it’s a really perfect location for reasonable hydropower.

“A variety of the issues that we search for—or that any good miner appears to be like for—we had been capable of finding out in Paraguay,” he mentioned. “We’re hyper-focused on placing our philosophy on the market with wanting to enhance humanity’s relationship with cash and vitality.” 

Szamosszegi described the agency’s retail providing instead strategy to purchase Bitcoin, versus tapping an trade. Collaborating within the mining course of aligns extra intently with pseudonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s imaginative and prescient, he claimed.

Bitcoin miners and renewable vitality

Miners play a necessary position in maintaining the Bitcoin community up and working by a course of often called proof-of-work. They race to unravel complicated cryptographic puzzles and are rewarded with newly-minted Bitcoin for verifying transactions.

Drawing on the dam’s surplus vitality, Szamosszegi mentioned Sazmining can host mining rigs at $0.047 per kilowatt-hour—considerably cheaper than a mean price of $0.16 per kilowatt-hour within the U.S.

The agency’s facility in Paraguay represents an enlargement of Sazmining’s footprint. The startup at the moment has a hydropower facility situated within the U.S. state of Wisconsin able to producing 1.7 megawatts.

The corporate’s enlargement in Paraguay could have an preliminary capability of as much as 5 megawatts, Szamosszegi mentioned. For comparability, Bitcoin’s community has an annualized consumption of 135 terawatt-hours, in line with Cambridge College’s Bitcoin Electrical energy Consumption Index (1 terawatt is equal to 1,000,000 megawatts).

Bitcoin’s vitality consumption

Whereas Bitcoin’s vitality consumption and influence on the setting have drawn scrutiny from critics, together with lawmakers within the U.S., advocates declare that Bitcoin can present an various retailer of worth for surplus energy.

Sazmining President and COO Kent Halliburton mentioned the brand new facility will do exactly that, stopping the nation’s extra energy from ever being bought at a loss.

“Bitcoin mining successfully transforms what was as soon as a loss right into a worthwhile enterprise for your entire nation,” Halliburton mentioned, including the transfer is an funding in “electrical infrastructure that may proceed to serve Paraguay for generations.”