Companies in Argentina and Paraguay collaborate to develop mining farms.
Bitcoin mining has recently become popular due to the opportunities it offers. On the one hand, it provides new jobs where highly skilled labor is required, and on the other hand, it has a positive impact on local economies. On this occasion, the company Bitfarms is the promoter of the project to create Bitcoin mining facilities in both countries. The information, included in the Q4 2021 report, presented an upcoming projection for developing mining centers.
Extending Bitcoin Mining in LATAM
Construction work began in January 2022 in Paraguay, where the mining centers will use hydroelectric power. This green energy source provides a significant competitive advantage to miners using these facilities, as they will be able to use very low-cost electricity while keeping their fixed costs lower than other competitors located abroad. In addition, it is a benchmark project in Paraguay since there have not been any major initiatives yet. On the other hand, in Argentina, Bitcoin mining is becoming more popular and continues to spread throughout the territory, reaching more and more cities where you can install devices even in apartments.
In Argentina, they are building facilities that will have at least 27,500 mining devices of the Whatsminer M30S type produced by the manufacturer MicroBT, which are highly specialized equipment in the resolution of the computational operations necessary to validate a new block in the Bitcoin network. Each of these devices will contribute 88 Terahashes per second and the entire facility will add about 2.42 Exahashes per second (EH/s) to the Blockchain hash rate.
An increasingly decentralized Bitcoin Network
Currently, there is around 206 EH/s of combined computing power globally for the Bitcoin network. In Argentina alone, Bitfarms plans to reach 1% of world computing power with the facilities that it has under development. For the users and for the institutions that use the bitcoin network, it is of vital importance that the hash rate be “decentralized”. This means that the hash rate is distributed in different countries of the world so that the network is more secure and virtually impossible to hack since it would need, hypothetically speaking, 51% of those 206 EH/s to be able to falsify information, something that would clearly be more expensive than simply mining Bitcoin with that computing power.
With an electrical power expenditure of 100 MW, there is an estimation that the mining plants will be operational in Q4 of 2022. They are building the Argentinian farms in Río Cuarto, in the province of Córdoba. The locations of the other centers projected for development in the country are unknown, but according to estimates, all the mining centers will consume the amount equivalent to a hundred Argentine houses per year. Without a doubt, the energy consumption of mining is high, but it also opens up various opportunities for the regional and national economies. In addition, the activity will bring cryptocurrencies closer to the citizens of these regions, providing them with the opportunity to venture into the sector.
In conclusion, being at the forefront of computing is undoubtedly profitable and you can take advantage of this experience for developments such as mining Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other currencies. To make this possible, access to low-cost energy is vital, since the necessary computer equipment represents a large initial investment for companies and, therefore, there is a payback period of several months or even a few years depending on market behavior. In any case, the spread of activity in South America shows that interest in crypto is on the rise and that mining is a profitable business activity when planned correctly.
By Audy Castaneda
