Ethiopia Intends to Wind Down Bitcoin Mining Citing Grid Strain

Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) will begin phasing out crypto mining in the country, after internal projections showed the sector could absorb a third of the nation’s electricity supply this year.

According to a news report on Friday by The Reporter Ethiopia, EEP chief executive Asheber Balcha said at the company’s Aug. 7 annual performance review that no further data mining contracts will be signed and that the utility intends to discontinue existing agreements.

He described the activity as a temporary measure to earn foreign currency, which brought in USD 220 million over the past fiscal year, but stressed it was never part of EEP’s long-term plans.

According to the Ethiopian Energy Outlook 2025, a report prepared by EEP, the Petroleum and Energy Authority, and other state bodies, crypto mining’s soaring energy demand could hinder access for households and industries—especially in rural areas still affected by rolling outages and reliance on diesel generation.

Ethiopia opened its doors to Bitcoin mining in 2023 through a government licensing program led by the Information Network Security Agency, even while maintaining a domestic ban on crypto trading. Since then, 21 operators, 19 of them foreign-owned and largely backed by Chinese capital, have secured power purchase deals. Most have sited their facilities near major transmission infrastructure around Addis Ababa. Indeed, a list of publicly traded bitcoin mining companies with Chinese and Middle East origins, including Phoenix Group, Canaan, Bitdeer, BitFuFu, and BIT Mining, has made capacity expansion plans over the past years in Ethiopia.

However, the government stopped issuing new licenses in February 2024 amid concerns over how projects were progressing and the overall capacity of the national grid, The Reporter Ethiopia said. Miners currently pay USD 0.0314 per kilowatt-hour in foreign currency, but millions of Ethiopians still lack reliable electricity.