ACR #3: Bitcoin Lights Up Kenyan Village

Rural Kenyan villages gets electricity through bitcoin mining.

Dec 19, 2022

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This Week in Africa

Gridless Compute, a hydro-powered bitcoin mining initiative, has said its hydro-power BTC mining rigs is powering an entire rural settlement in Kenya while also lowering energy rates for 2,000 people, the equivalent of 500 families in the East African country. The update was put out on Twitter by Jack Dorsey, former CEO at Twitter, along with a video and several pictures.

What does this mean?

Gridless Compute focuses on providing cheap and uninterrupted energy to the rural areas of East Africa as it’s super expensive to pay for electricity in a small village in Kenya than larger cities. Apart from being costly, this energy is often interrupted.

Instead, it builds mini-grid hydropower energy generators in rural areas that the local families use to draw power from and also uses the grid’s excess capacity to mine bitcoin. With the revenue it generates from mining, Gridless Compute bears most of the costs, which reduces energy tariffs for families who depend on the mini grid’s power.

According to Jack’s tweet, power costs decrease from $10 per month to $4, and securing BTC’s underlying blockchain network doing all this.

Last week, Gridless also announced a $2 million seed round led by VC Stillmark and Block, the parent company of CashApp and Square. Gridless says the funds from this round will be used to further the expansion of BTC mines across African markets while targeting rural communities for accessible energy.

In the words of Gridless’s CEO, Erik Hersman:

“Africa needs affordable electricity. Our work in supporting renewable energy mini grid developers fills a gap, helping developers expand faster, be more sustainable, and serve thousands of households.”

It will be interesting to see how this initiative scales to other parts of the continent, especially because affordable and uninterrupted power is still in the realm of science fiction for governments in many African countries.

What else?

Kenyan bitcoin mining startup Gridless raises $2m seed funding for expansion

It secured US$2 million in seed funding to support expansion of bitcoin mines across Africa.

Bitcoin Lightning Network to be used in fiat transfers between Europe and Africa

CoinCorner and Bitnob have teamed up to create cross-border transactions between the UK/Europe to Africa via the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

What’s going on abroad?

FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried Is Arrested in the Bahamas

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday after U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges.

"We're Financially Strong" Says Binance's CZ

Changpeng Zhao was questioned about his exchange’s insolvency & withdrawal difficulties during a TV interview and he came out in defense of his platform, citing that they are financially stable and better off than any other exchange in the industry.

Trump Launches his Own NFT Collection

Donald Trump, former President of the United States is launching his own NFT digital card collection on Polygon. Each card is available for purchase for $99 on the official website.