Uncategorized

How Ethiopia’s Low Energy Costs Allow BIT Mining to Recycle its Bitcoin Machines

Published

8 месяцев ago

7 января, 2025

Landlocked between six different neighbors in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has approximately 120 million inhabitants, making it the second most populous nation on the continent, and a GDP of $163 billion, which puts it in the same economic league as Ukraine, Morocco, Slovakia or Kuwait.

However, the country has also suffered from a bloody civil war, with several regions still under the control of anti-government forces, like the ethno-nationalist Amhara militia Fano.

But that hasn’t prevented Chinese bitcoin (BTC) mining company BIT Mining (BTCM) from expanding its operations — until now confined to Akron, Ohio — into Ethiopia by signing a $14 million deal to acquire facilities worth 51 megawatts (MW) and almost 18,000 bitcoin mining rigs in the country.

In fact, for Dr. Youwei Yang, chief economist at BIT Mining, Ethiopia’s ultra-low electricity costs provide the firm with a unique opportunity to extend the shelf life of its bitcoin mining rigs which, due to the industry’s extreme competitiveness, tend to become obsolete in the U.S. after roughly two or two-and-a-half years of activity, he said.

“The price of electricity is maybe 70% higher in Ohio than in Ethiopia, sometimes almost double, so it can only run very advanced ASICs, like the newest or second newest generations,” Yang told CoinDesk in an interview. “Now we can just move older generation machines into Ethiopia.”

It’s a big deal, because aside from mining litecoin (LTC) and dogecoin (DOGE), BIT Mining is mainly in the hosting business, meaning that it operates mining facilities for the sake of various clients. State-of-the-art mining rigs don’t come cheap (a single machine fetching anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000 for retail buyers) and investors are naturally reluctant to send such expensive pieces of machinery to war-torn jurisdictions.

The pitch, then, is to install the newer rigs in the U.S. and send out the aging ones to Ethiopia. That creates a positive feedback loop, because now investors can extract greater returns from their machines than if BIT Mining restricted itself to operating in the U.S. That, in turn, attracts more capital, Yang said.

“We can get at least two extra years by moving the rigs to Ethiopia, and then maybe after that, they’re completely done,” Yang said.

Mining bitcoin in Ethiopia

But why Ethiopia specifically? For one thing, the country’s electric standard is similar to China’s, which allows BIT Mining to leverage the expertise of its engineering team and redeploy some of the electric equipment it previously used in the Middle Kingdom before the bitcoin mining ban.

Ethiopia also enjoys an abundance of hydroelectric power, some of it thanks to Chinese investments, which have totalled $8.5 billion across more than 3,000 projects in recent years. For example, China helped fund the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD); once completed, it will be the largest dam in Africa and generate over 5,000 MW.

Not all of Ethiopia’s electric output has been put to use yet, however, and that has created a window of opportunity for bitcoin miners, especially since the Ethiopian government has been supportive of the mining industry. In fact, the country is home to 1.5% of Bitcoin’s total hashrate, according to Hashrate Index, meaning that it contributes about as much to the network as Norway.

That’s despite the fact that the Ethiopian federal government has a shaky control over the country’s overall territory. Hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians were killed in the government’s war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front between 2020 and 2022, and the state only just signed a peace treaty in December with the Oromo Liberation Army, which it had been fighting in some form or other since the 1970s.

When asked whether BIT Mining had concerns about the social unrest in the country, Yang replied that the firm had been “studying, researching and also visiting [Ethiopia] several times, just [ascertain] that it’s a stable place.” The decision was made to purchase a facility instead of building it from scratch to avoid any unforeseen trouble, he said.

Even so, it was a challenge convincing BIT Mining employees to move to Ethiopia from their previous domiciles in the U.S. or China, Yang said.

“People obviously like to live and work in richer and safer countries,” he said. While a third of the facility’s operating team are foreign right now, the team will be composed of mostly locals down the line, he said.

In the meantime, the company is on the lookout for new investments in the country — be them energy infrastructure projects, data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) purposes, or other bitcoin mining facilities.

“There’s plenty of opportunities in Ethiopia,” Yang said. “The AI thing… We’ve been studying it for the last six to nine months. We have the power. We have the people. We have the ability to do it. But [the whole process] is very capital heavy. Construction in the U.S. is a lot more expensive, so it’s very hard to do a pilot experiment, but it’s a lot easier to [try one] in Ethiopia.”

Uncategorized

Memecoins Under Pressure as SHIB, Dogecoin Slide After Shibarium Loses $2.4M in Hack

Published

26 минут ago

15 сентября, 2025

admin

Top meme tokens traded under pressure as a multimillion dollar hack of Shiba Inu’s layer-2 network, Shibarium, dented investor confidence in joke cryptocurrencies.

On Sunday, Shibarium fell victim to a flash loan attack on its validator system, which drained about $2.4 million in ether (ETH) and SHIB. The CoinDesk Memecoin Index has dropped 6.6% in the past 24 hours. The broader market CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) is down just 2.3%.

The attacker borrowed 4.6 million BONE, the governance token for the Shiba Inu ecosystem, often linked to the decentralized exchange (DEX) ShibaSwap, through a flash loan to gain control of the majority of validator keys. The keys act as gatekeepers of the network, confirming transactions and ensuring security.

With that control, the attacker was able to game the system into approving unauthorized transactions and walk away with a large amount of crypto assets from the bridge that connects Shibarium with the Ethereum blockchain. The process is akin to someone temporarily taking over a bank’s security system to approve unauthorized withdrawals. A flash loan is a loan raised with no upfront collateral and returns the borrowed assets within the same blockchain transaction.

The Shiba inu team was able to prevent a bigger, more serious breach because the BONE tokens used to gain control were reportedly tied to validator 1 and remained locked by the staking rules.

Nevertheless, markets reacted negatively breach, which again underscores the perennial security issues with blockchain technology.

Memecoins drop, broader market bid

SHIB fell by the most in three weeks on Sunday (UTC), losing 4% $0.00001369, and has continued to weaken to trade recently at $0.00001359. The cryptocurrency experienced considerable volatility throughout the 23-hour trading window ended Sept. 15 at 02:00 UTC, with the aggregate range encompassing $0.000006191, a 4% oscillation from peak to trough.

The session commenced with pre-dawn fragility as SHIB retreated from $0.000014156 to establish a pivotal trough of $0.000013547 at 14:00 UTC. Volume of 1.064 trillion tokens surpassed the 24-hour mean, signaling robust distribution pressure and prospective capitulation, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis model.

The BONE token, which initially doubled to over 36 cents, is now down over 2% on a 24-hour basis, trading at around 20 cents.

According to the technical analysis model:

SHIB established a critical underpinning at $0.000013547 during elevated volume selling pressure exceeding 1.064 trillion tokens.
The token constructed successive higher lows and consolidation parameters between $0.000013600-$0.000013780.
Recovery momentum is demonstrated by ascending channel formations with sustained higher lows, indicating potential continuation towards the $0.000014000 resistance.
Volume patterns exceeded 24-hour averages during the decline phase, confirming potential capitulation levels.
Terminal hour trading exhibited decisive upward momentum with 1% appreciation, confirming a breach above the resistance threshold.

Large DOGE transfers add to bearish sentiment

Meanwhile, SHIB’s peer dogecoin (DOGE) fell 4% to 27.80 cents on Sunday and has since lost further 5% to 27.36 cents, according CoinDesk data.

A massive transfer of DOGE to a centralized exchange likely added to the bearish mood in the market. According to Whale Alert, crypto exchange OKX received 119,306,143 DOGE, worth over $34 million, from an unknown wallet. Such large transfers are typically associated with an intention to liquidate holdings.

Uncategorized

Fed Rate Decision, MKR-SKY Conversion Deadline: Crypto Week Ahead

Published

56 минут ago

15 сентября, 2025

admin

The U.S. Federal Reserve is likely to dominate markets, both crypto and traditional, in the coming week. Traders are positioned for a rate cut of at least 25 basis points when the Fed announces its decision on Sept. 17, according to CME’s Fedwatch tool.

What to Watch

Crypto
- Sept. 16, 12 p.m. ET: Solana AMA on X.
- Sept. 18: Mavryk Network launches its mainnet and native MVRK token.
- Sept. 18: Rex-Osprey Dogecoin ETF expected to begin trading on Cboe BZX Exchange under ticker DOJE.
- Sept. 18: Unipoly Chain (UNP) mainnet launch.
Macro
- Sept. 16: Brazil July unemployment rate Est. N/A (Prev. 5.8%).
- Sept. 16: Canada August headline CPI YoY Est. N/A (Prev. 1.7%), MoM Est. N/A (Prev. 0.3%); core YoY Est. N/A (Prev. 2.6%), MoM Est. N/A (Prev. 0.1%).
- Sept. 16: U.K. July unemployment rate Est. 4.7%.
- Sept. 17: U.K. August headline CPI YoY Est. 3.9%. MoM Est. N/A (Prev. 0.1%); core YoY Est. 3.7%, MoM Est. N/A (Prev. 0.2%).
- Sept. 17: Canada benchmark interest rate Est. N/A (Prev. 2.75%) followed by a press conference.
- Sept. 17: The Fed’s FOMC decision on U.S. interest rates. Est: 25 bps cut to 4.00%-4.25% followed by a press conference.
- Sept. 17: Brazil benchmark interest rate Est. N/A (Prev. 15%).
- Sept. 18: Bank of England decision on U.K. interest rates. Est: unchanged at 4%.
- Sept. 19: Bank of Japan interest-rate decision. Est: unchanged at 0.5%.
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- Sept. 18: Lite Strategy (MEIP), pre-market

Token Events

Governance votes & calls
- Curve DAO is voting to changes to donation-enabled Twocrypto contracts. Voting ends Sept. 16.
- Sept. 16: Aster Network to host a community call.
- MantleDAO is voting on keeping the 2025-2026 budget at $52 million USDc and 200 million MNT. Voting ends Sept. 18
- Sept. 18, 6 a.m.: Mantle to host Mantle State of Mind, a monthly townhall series.
- Sept. 16, 12 p.m.:Kava to host a community Ask Me Anything (AMA) session.
- Sept. 23: SwissBorg to make a live announcement.
Unlocks
- Sept. 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 5.98% of its circulating supply worth $17.09 million.
- Sept. 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.18% of its circulating supply worth $18.06 million.
- Sept. 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.03% of its circulating supply worth $48.16 million.
- Sept. 17: ZKsync (ZK) to unlock 3.61% of its circulating supply worth $10.54 million.
- Sept. 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 2.08% of its circulating supply worth $89.8 million
- Sept. 20: Velo (VELO) to unlock 13.63% of its circulating supply worth $43.39 million.
- Sept. 20: KAITO (KAITO) to unlock 3.15% of its circulating supply worth $10.1 million.
Token Launches
- Sept. 15: OpenLedger (OPENLEDGER) to be listed on Crypto.com.
- Sept. 18: Deadline to convert MKR to SKY before the delayed upgrade penalty takes effect.
- Sept. 20: Reserve Rights (RSR) to conduct a token burn.
- Sept. 22: Falcon Finance to host community sale on Buidlpad.

Conferences

Sept.12-15: ETHTokyo 2025 (Tokyo, Japan)
Sept. 15: TGE Summit 2025 (New York)
Sept. 15-21: Budapest Blockchain Week 2025 (Budapest, Hungary)
Sept. 16-17: Real-World Asset Summit (New York)
Sept. 17: The Bitcoin Treasuries NYC Unconference (New York)
Sept. 17-19: AIBC 2025 (Tokyo, Japan)
Sept. 18: CBC Summit USA (Washington)
Sept. 19: DEF-AI 2025 (Tblisi, Georgia)
Sept. 17-20: Nomad Capitalist Live 2025 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Sept. 21: XRP Seoul 2025 (Seoul, South Korea)

Uncategorized

Bank of England’s Proposed Stablecoin Ownership Limits are Unworkable, Says Crypto Group

Published

2 часа ago

15 сентября, 2025

admin

The Financial Times (FT) reported on Monday that cryptocurrency groups are urging the Bank of England (BoE) to scrap proposals limiting the amount of stablecoins individuals and businesses can own.

The group warned that the rules would leave the UK with stricter oversight than the U.S. or the European Union (EU).

According to the FT, BoE officials plan to impose caps of 10,000 british pounds to 20,000 british pounds ($13,600–$27,200) for individuals and about 10 million british pounds ($13.6 million) for businesses on all systemic stablecoins, defined as tokens already widely used for payments in the U.K. or expected to be in the future.

The central bank has argued the restrictions are needed to prevent outflows of deposits from banks that could weaken credit provision and financial stability.

The FT cited Sasha Mills, the BoE’s executive director for financial market infrastructure, as saying the limits would mitigate risks from sudden deposit withdrawals and the scaling of new systemic payment systems.

However, industry executives told the FT the plan is unworkable.

Tom Duff Gordon, Coinbase’s vice president of international policy, said “imposing caps on stablecoins is bad for U.K. savers, bad for the City and bad for sterling,” adding that no other major jurisdiction has imposed such limits.

Simon Jennings of the UK cryptoasset business council said enforcement would be nearly impossible without new systems such as digital IDs. Riccardo Tordera-Ricchi of The Payments Association told the FT that limits “make no sense” because there are no caps on cash or bank accounts.

The U.S. enacted the GENIUS Act in July, which establishes a federal framework for payment stablecoins. The law sets licensing, reserve and redemption standards for issuers, with no caps on individual holdings. The European Union has also moved ahead with its Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which is now fully in effect across the bloc.

Stablecoin-specific rules for asset-referenced and e-money tokens took effect on June 30, 2024, followed by broader provisions for crypto-assets and service providers on Dec. 30, 2024. Like the U.S. approach, MiCA does not cap holdings, instead focusing on reserves, governance and oversight by national regulators.