Ethiopia appears to have agreed $250 million Bitcoin mining deal

ETHIOPIA may have signed up to a $250 million agreement with a Hong Kong-based company to develop Bitcoin mining and AI training operations.

According to its social media accounts last night, Ethiopian Investment Holdings signed a 'memorandum of understanding' over a Bitcoin mining project with a subsidiary of West Data Group.

However, the posts were swiftly removed and replaced this afternoon with any reference to West Data Group, the $250m and Bitcoin mining mysteriously removed.

Instead, the EIH now refers to an agreement over 'data mining' and is either unable or unwilling to offer clarification or responses to questions about the nature of the deal.

Only last week, Bloomberg reported from Ethiopia on the African nation's status as a leading centre of Bitcoin mining - a process which Ethiopia's government seem keen to rebrand as 'high-performance computing' or 'data mining', according to several recent official statements.

Miners have been flocking to Ethiopia for almost three years due to its huge hydropower capacity and very low electricity prices. The recent rise also coincides with China banning Bitcoin mining in 2021.

It is also finalising construction of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (GERD), which has a projected installed capacity of 5,150 MW.

About 40% of Ethiopia's 120 million people do not have access to electricity.

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