Bitcoin in the Bush: How a Remote Zambian Crypto Mine is Empowering Communities

Deep in the heart of Zambia, where the Zambezi River crashes over rocks and surges through rapids, an unexpected hum fills the air- one that signals not just the movement of water, but the digital economy at work. In what some may consider the most remote part of the world, currently, a bitcoin mining operation is changing lives, literally transforming them both financially and technologically in ways previously unexplored.

Harnessing the Power of the Zambezi for Bitcoin Mining

Standing next to a shipping container filled with 120 specialist computers is Philip Walton, an entrepreneur from Kenya-based Gridless. The computers are working tirelessly around the clock calculating and solving complex cryptographic puzzles to verify bitcoin transactions and be awarded cryptocurrency.

“It’s the sound of money!” Walton said, smiling at the performance of his machines. It is a sound which apparently only dreamers make; what makes it unique, however, is that that’s what power transforms into this operation.

At the end northwest of Zambia, close to where it borders Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, this mine plugs directly into the Zengamina hydroelectric power plant because here, huge turbines are turning the energy of the river into a steady flow of renewable electricity that comes at very low cost. This thus cheap is the very reason why Walton’s team trekked 14 hours over terrible roads to set up shop in such a corner of the world.

Estimated about $5 each day are generated by every bitcoin mining rig, but the dividends go up and down contingent on the value of bitcoin, currently valued at around $80,000 per coin. But even during downturns in prices, the mine pays due to its very cheap and renewable source of energy.

A Win-Win Partnership: Bitcoin Mining and Local Power Development

The Zengamina hydro plant is an independent mini-grid built in the early 2000s with $3 million in charitable donations. Initially designed to power a local hospital, the plant now illuminates around 15,000 souls. Projects such as these lose ground because of slow adoption by the local community, thereby incurring financial debts for excess power not consumed.

That’s where bitcoin mining came to the rescue.

“Every day, we were wasting over half of the energy we could generate,” explains Daniel Rea, the manager of the plant. “That meant we weren’t earning enough to cover operation costs. We needed a major consumer of power, and that’s where the partnership with Gridless turned things around.”

Today, the bitcoin mine constitutes about 30% of the revenue of the plant and keeps it financially afloat, enabling an affordable electricity price for the local folks.

The Transformational Impact of Electricity on the Community

While the complexities of bitcoin may remain mystifying to Zengamina’s denizens, the modification of community life due to stable electricity is crystal clear.

Just a few kilometers away from the plant, barber Damian proudly recounts to a fast-expanding group of customers how electricity changed his life a year and a half ago. 

“Before electricity, I had nothing. I could not do anything,” he states. “But when power came, I bought everything at the same time.”

His small barbershop is a blaze of activity during the night— decorated with festive lights, speakers blaring music videos, and the din of clippers in constant motion. Young people flock to him as this barber shop becomes the charming social center of town.

Sisters Tumba and Lucy Machayi, like so many young persons in town, always find time for spending their time on their mobile phones, something that wasn’t possible before the arrival of electricity.

“This town was the bush before,” relates Lucy. “There were no fridges, no TV, no mobile phone network.”

“Electricity has dramatically changed our lives,” Tumba adds. “Now we can charge our phones, we have a network, and we can communicate.”

Bitcoin Mining: The Future of Zambia and Beyond

With its success, the Zengamina bitcoin mine is dying out. The hydro plant has attracted major investments to develop new villages in support of connecting to Zambia’s national power grid. Once this materializes, Zengamina will sell back its consumed surplus electricity to the national grid, thus making the more costly bitcoin mining operation less profitable.

Philip Walton and team take the loss in their stride. “That’s actually a good thing,” he says. “We have had a fantastic few years here, have been able to improve the Zengamina place, and make a profit selling bitcoin. Time to move on.”

Gridless has six more of these bitcoin-mining operations in three African countries, all oppose hydropower sites that are not being developed. Another, north of Zengamina, operates alongside a hydro plant in Congo’s Virunga National Park, helping fund conservation efforts.

Future ambitions of Gridless may even be grander. The company intends to construct its own hydroelectric facilities for bitcoin mining and providing electricity to underserved communities.

“We are raising tens of millions of dollars for new hydro projects,” shares co-founder Janet Maingi. “Africa is endowed with so much hydro potential, which remains underdeveloped, and we intend to take a consumer-driven energy approach to unlock access to sustainable power.”

The Energy Use Controversy in Bitcoin Mining

But even as the case for rural electrification builds up, mining for bitcoin compromises the one good deed at hand. Critics argue that these mega operations are consuming a lot of electricity, some estimate that mining for bitcoin worldwide uses about the same amount of electricity as Poland. 

Experts in the mining industry are however countering this argument, saying, that on the contrary, it is the energy mix that is becoming sustainable toward bitcoin mining. Cambridge University concludes that increasing amounts of mining operations are combining renewable energy sources, e.g., hydro, solar, and wind.

History has shown that, in the absence of regulation, bitcoin mining has the potential to strain public energy grids. Kazakhstan, for instance, experienced a 7 percent increase in national energy consumption during the mining boom of 2020-2021, thereby forcing the government to crackdown on the industry. Likewise, in the U.S., mining companies have been signed up with agreements to curtail power when energy is most needed.

Widescale agreements such as these will hence serve the path where bitcoin will be mined, minted, and made in the USA, as trumpeted by President Donald Trump.

A New Model for Bitcoin Mining?

Zengamina provides an insight into an alternative future, where bitcoin mining does not merely consume energy but rather tries to construct sustainability.

By aligning financial incentives with renewable energy expansion, operations like Gridless prove that bitcoin mining can do more than generate digital wealth; it can actually help power real-world communities.

There is a sense that while the mine’s time in the region is coming to a close, the effects of its presence will reverberate for years to come, resembling a container being rolled with mining equipment from Zengamina toward its next destination.