One of the world’s largest asset managers momentarily delighted Bitcoiners today when it released a three-minute advertisement for bitcoin (BTC). Just 90 seconds into the video, however, delight turned to dismay when viewers spotted BlackRock’s finely printed supply disclaimer overlaid atop an otherwise glowing overview of the currency’s monetary credentials.

In the video, which was amplified by MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor, BlackRock disclaimed, “There is no guarantee that bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap will not be changed.”

The disappointment at the sighting was palpable. 

Bitcoiners labeled it “misinformation,” “FUD,” “underhanded,” “laughable,” and a homophonic euphemism for retarded. The topic immediately trended on X.

Unbeknownst to most Bitcoiners, that disclaimer is also present in BlackRock’s prospectus for its spot BTC ETF. IBIT, the world’s largest spot BTC ETF, discloses various risk factors to investors in its Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. One of those risks is that the supply of BTC might increase beyond 21 million.

“Although many observers believe this is unlikely at present, there is no guarantee that the current 21 million supply cap for outstanding bitcoin, which is estimated to be reached by approximately the year 2140, will not be changed. If a hard fork changing the 21 million supply cap is widely adopted, the limit on the supply of bitcoin could be lifted, which could have an adverse impact on the value of bitcoin.”

-BlackRock

It’s a remote possibility– so remote as to be “laughable” or “FUD,” according to some — yet BlackRock’s lawyers consider it pertinent to an average investor’s decision-making.

How would bitcoin’s supply exceed 21 million?

The first possibility of a supply increase is a bug. There were a few hours in Bitcoin’s nascent history, for example, when the BTC supply briefly exploded over 184 billion. Satoshi Nakamoto corrected that August 2010 bug, known as the “value overflow incident,” within hours.

Patched up and operating smoothly ever since, it’s hard to take the threat of any new bugs seriously — especially with a $2 trillion prize attached to any successful hack.

Nevertheless, although BTC’s supply has continuously remained below 21 million for more than a decade with no foreseeable inflation bugs, it’s technically possible that someone might exploit an esoteric bug in the future and briefly alter its supply.

For this reason, BlackRock must legally disclaim the 21 million supply cap of BTC. In its IBIT prospectus, BlackRock notes on page 57, “the 21 million supply cap could be changed in a hard fork.”

Read more: Did Michael Saylor pay Bitcoin developers to stop working?

If not an inflation bug, then a voluntary fork

The second possibility for breaching BTC’s 21 million supply cap is a voluntary hard fork.

BTC’s maximum supply is rigid, with zero tail emissions. One researcher estimates it at 20,999,817.31308491 or less. However, there have been various proposals to increase the quantity of circulating BTC via a voluntary fork, such as Peter Todd’s tail emissions proposal.

Tail emissions are a type of proposal that would financially incentivize miners when Bitcoin’s mining reward drops to zero in the year 2140. Although most variants of tail emissions propose recirculating provably burned or unspendable BTC into mining rewards — thereby honoring the 21 million cap — some variants of tail emissions propose lifting the supply cap slightly in order to incentivize miners to secure the network beyond 2140 if transaction fees do not sufficiently subsidize miners’ electricity, machinery, and effort.

However, there are vanishingly few Bitcoiners who currently support any version of tail emissions that exceed BTC’s current supply cap.

There will never be more than 21 million bitcoin.*

Operators of nodes around the world enforce the current version of Bitcoin’s mining rules. Anyone who tries to validate a block or transaction that doesn’t comply with BTC’s 21 million supply cap will be rejected by the vast majority of these nodes.

With over 15 years of consistent enforcement of this supply cap, there are very few people who think BTC’s supply limit will ever change.

There are at least 67,000 nodes around the world that enforce BTC’s 21 million supply cap, and about 19,000 are online and reachable at any given moment. All of them stand guard to defend against any breach of this ceiling.

*From the perspective of a BlackRock lawyer, however, they would still prefer to note the risk — even if it is in fine print.

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Although the price of bitcoin stole the show during Donald Trump’s re-election, its rally also lifted a number of other key metrics. Coinciding with an all-time high in price were bitcoin’s resurgence to all-time high futures transactions, spot ETF inflows, options volume, exchange trade volume, total circulating bitcoin, total value locked, and total hash rate.

These are the eight metrics that took the Bitcoin network to an all-time high beyond its USD price.

All-time high bitcoin daily spot ETF inflows

As bitcoin rallied on enthusiasm for Donald Trump’s incoming presidency, traditional investors who prefer exchange-listed products also placed plenty of buy orders. 

After adjusting for a one-day anomaly of Grayscale trust-to-ETF asset rotation during the debut of spot bitcoin ETFs, US-listed spot bitcoin ETFs enjoyed their highest-ever day of capital inflows as bitcoin itself rallied past $74,000.

On a net basis, investors added $1.373 billion of capital to US spot bitcoin ETFs on November 7.

All-time high bitcoin options volume

Bitcoin options volume also hit a new record this week. According to data aggregated at Coinglass, $2.47 billion worth of bitcoin options traded on the currency’s largest options exchange on November 7. 

CME, Bitcoin’s second-largest options exchange, posted record-high volumes just prior to the election: $528 million on November 2.

All-time high bitcoin open interest

Bitcoin open interest on options contracts also hit an all-time high alongside their underlying asset. On November 7, bitcoin open interest aggregated at Coinglass totaled a staggering $32.57 billion.

Read more: CHART: Bitcoin could have turned your $1,200 stimulus check into $14,000

All-time high bitcoin futures transactions

Transaction volume for another bitcoin derivative also hit a record this week. On November 6, 29,081 futures contracts traded hands ahead of bitcoin’s front-month, November 2024 expiry on the CME.

All-time high bitcoin exchange trade volume

Total trading volume of spot bitcoin across major bitcoin exchanges also hit an all-time high this week. On November 6, crypto exchanges reported $1.49 billion worth of spot bitcoin transactions.

All-time high total circulating bitcoin

Although easy to forecast given bitcoin’s predictable supply and issuance schedule, the total number of mined bitcoins that are circulating in the market reached an all-time high alongside the USD price of each coin. On November 7, total circulating BTC hit 19,778,915 — 94.1% of its supply cap.

All-time high bitcoin total value locked

Investors locked a record 39,790 bitcoin worth $3 billion in DeFi applications using Bitcoin’s blockchain per data from DefiLlama.

Read more: Jack Dorsey and Block abandon Web5 to mine bitcoin

All-time high bitcoin network mining difficulty

As a record bitcoin price incentivized more miners to join the network to earn block rewards, Bitcoin’s protocol has raised the mathematical difficulty of hashing a block of transactions.

As of November 7, the mining difficulty is at an all-time high of 101,646,843,652,790.

Difficulty is expressed as a regular number that simply describes how many times harder it is to mine a block compared to the easiest it can ever be.

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Northern Data, the Tether-owned AI computing firm, has announced that it is considering leaving the bitcoin mining business just days after announcing it is on course to deliver 7.9 exahashes per second (EH/s) this year. 

On October 17, Northern Data announced its Q3 financial results, noting in a press release that its mining business was still on track to open its new Corpus Christi Texas location — critical for its hash rate goal — soon. 

However, four days later, the company revealed that it was exploring a “potential transaction of its mining business,” specifically noting that it was “exploring the divestment of its heritage crypto mining business, Peak Mining.” As a result, Northern Data would become “a pure-play AI Solutions business.” 

Northern Data states that proceeds from this transaction would be reinvested in its AI-focused business lines.

Read more: Tether: Ten years, 100,000,000,000 USDT, and still no audit

This decision may be driven by the declining proportion of Northern Data’s revenue coming from mining. This fell from 74% of its revenue at the beginning of 2024 to only 20% for Q3. Additionally, the revenue for mining has fallen from 22 million euros in Q1 to only 12 million euros in Q3. 

While Northern Data considers this pivot, Tether does have other investments in the bitcoin mining space, including Bitdeer, Volcano Energy, and 2040 Energy.

Northern Data has been involved in a dispute with former executives over claimed securities fraud. The business maintains that no inappropriate behavior occurred. 

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Swan Bitcoin has filed a lawsuit against Proton Management, a bitcoin mining firm made up of former Swan consultants, claiming that these executives “hatched and executed a ‘rain and hellfire’ plan to steal Swan’s” mining business. 

Specifically, the suit alleges that several consultants who were a part of Swan’s Bitcoin mining operation allegedly planned to misappropriate Swan’s intellectual property to operate a “copycat company” that was also funded by Tether.

The lawsuit includes an email that appears to show a discussion about how best to execute the exit and says, “Tether needs to send default notice.”

The Timeline

According to the lawsuit, in June 2023, Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten learned of a bitcoin mine in Australia that was trying to raise funding. He apparently discussed this opportunity with Giancarlo Devasini, the CFO of both Bitfinex and Tether, and the two agreed to form a joint venture with Swan providing management and Tether providing financing.

Additionally, the lawsuit reveals that Tether, through BFX Ventures, had previously invested in Swan.

The next month, then chief investment officer for Swan, Raphael Zagury, apparently began managing the Australian mining operations. This was helped by a group of consultants and employees, many of whom now work for Proton. 

According to the lawsuit, near the end of July 2023, Tether subsidiary Zettahash entered into an agreement with Swan to create 2040 Energy. This entity was funded by Tether, and a poorly redacted portion of the lawsuit reveals that Tether also “controlled 2040 Energy’s board of directors.”

Klippsten served as Swan’s sole director on the 2040 Energy board, and Tether CFO Giancarlo Devasini and Ludovicus Jan van der Velde (the former CEO of Tether and current CEO of Tether’s sister company, Bitfinex) served as Tether’s directors on the 2040 Energy board.

In February 2024, Tether and Swan began planning 2140 Energy to invest in a Tasmanian mining operation.

However, this agreement didn’t play out as imagined. Allegedly, the executives behind Swan’s bitcoin mining operation planned “rain and hellfire” by:

• downloading the ‘BNOC’ software
• creating a company
• having Tether provide “legal cover.”

In June 2024, Zach Lyons of Marlin Capital Partners, apparently a Tether advisor, allegedly communicated to Swan that Tether would be interested in investing in it.

However, days later, Zagury communicated to Swan that Tether was not interested in most of Swan; it was interested in mining and suggested spinning that off. 

Several days later, Zagury suggested Tether effectively force Klippstein to resign as CEO and accept ‘wind down capital’ in exchange for handing over the mining business.

Later in July, Zagury and Devasini apparently met and decided to add Zagury to the board of 2040 Energy and proposed moving 2040 Energy’s bitcoins to the custody of Zagury.

Also in July, Swan announced layoffs and the end of its Managed Mining Unit.

In early August 2024, several of these executives began to resign. An email was subsequently sent from Tether’s counsel that claimed, “I understand that most or all of the Swan Mining employees have resigned this morning. I have spoken with Tether and confirmed that these former employees were not encouraged to resign and have no existing arrangements with Tether.” 

Based on another poorly redacted part of the filing, Tether’s counsel sent a ‘Notice of Event of Default,’ to Swan’s counsel that claimed that “Swan breached the 2040 Energy Shareholders Agreement, providing the planned ‘legal cover’ against Swan for Defendant Proton to take Swan’s place in 2040 Energy and potentially beyond.

It claimed that the supposed ‘events of default’ included Swan’s alleged breach of the Shareholders Agreement because Klippsten “provided no assurances that Swan will be able to maintain the personnel necessary for Swan to procure that the business of 2040 Energy is conducted in accordance with the Investment Memos and sound business practices and commercial principles.”

Days later Klippstein resigned as CEO of 2040 Energy, in part because “Tether had accused Swan (again, his company) of breaching the Shareholders Agreement.”

Tether also apparently sent a ‘Notice of Continuing and Additional Breach,’ alleging again that “Swan had further breached the 2040 Energy Shareholders Agreement based on the resignations of ‘a substantial number of Swan employees responsible for carrying out and overseeing the ongoing business operations of 2040 Energy.'”

Tether’s counsel added, “Tether has engaged on the date hereof [Defendant] Proton Management Ltd., which entity has represented that it can supply the services of certain former employees of Swan, to procure that the business of 2040 Energy is conducted in accordance with the investment memos previously provided by Swan and sound business practice and commercial principles.”

Since then Swan has scuttled plans for a Series C fundraising round and IPO.

The dashboard and optimizations

One of the specific pieces of intellectual property that Proton Management took is apparently the Bitcoin Network Operating Center,  a dashboard that allows the mining firm to track some metrics related to the mining operations.

This dashboard can also be used to help analyze the profitability of bitcoin mining.

Additionally, Swan was apparently doing its own “proprietary” “overclocking and underclocking” procedure to increase the efficiency of its bitcoin mining operation. 

Additionally, it supposedly took documents related to client relationships.

Read more: We asked Swan CEO about layoffs, withdrawal times, and the canceled IPO

In addition to having to delay its IPO, Swan has also had to lay off employees and restructure the company following the decision to end the mining business. 

Protos has reached out to Tether and Swan for additional context on this lawsuit and Tether has provided the following comment:

“Tether is aware of recent allegations made in a lawsuit that mentions a subsidiary of Tether dedicated to proprietary mining and other investments. While Tether is not a named defendant in the case, we have taken note of the claims and deny any implications of wrongdoing.

“Tether remains committed to enabling financial freedom, educational empowerment, energy sustainability, and data sovereignty. We believe our operations and conduct align with these values.

“As this is an ongoing legal matter, we will refrain from providing further comment at this time. We will continue to monitor the lawsuit and provide updates as appropriate.

“In the meantime, Tether’s business operations continue as usual.”

Update September 27, 11:47 UTC: Added a response from Tether.

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In a recent viral video, HBO talk show host Bill Maher wholeheartedly broadcasted his belief that crypto mining consumes 8% of world electricity production. Unfortunately for Bill, that’s completely untrue.

In fact, the real figure is less than 1%. Estimates range from 90 to a maximum of 240 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year, with most estimates for worldwide bitcoin mining in 2023 nearer to 121 TWh. Even the US Energy Administration estimates somewhere in the region of 120 TWh.

Although significant, this figure isn’t even a single percentage point of global electricity consumption in 2023, which totaled over 27,000 TWh. Even using the highest, 240 TWh figure, crypto mining’s electricity consumption would still be below 1%.

Maher broadcast the claim across national television and internet streaming services, including in posts to his 10.8 million followers on X (formerly twitter) and 938,000 on Instagram.

Viewers dunk on the talk show host

Comments rained in — many laughing at Maher’s obvious error. “This has been debunked at length,” wrote Fil Hanson on Instagram. “This is embarrassingly wrong and reflective of your ignorance of the topic,” added Todd Leonardi. “Reiterating a talking point without any research into it,” lamented Matt Blumenberg.

Read more: Bitcoin mining is more difficult than ever

On X, Bitcoiners attempted to ratio Maher’s post with comments like “You’ve embarrassed yourself on live TV well done” and “This is embarrassing, even for you.” 

Maher’s social media accounts, which are likely controlled by an agency, have not responded to any of the criticisms. Protos reached out to Maher for comment but hadn’t received a response prior to publication time. 

A single crypto asset, bitcoin, consumes more than 90% of all electricity production across all proof-of-work blockchains. That said, even tripling or quadrupling the highest estimates of crypto’s electricity use wouldn’t get anywhere close to Maher’s claim of 8%.

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In April, pseudonymous researchers Mononaut and 0xB10C confirmed a long-held suspicion that Bitmain influenced a concerning percentage of the bitcoin mining network. Today, follow-up research confirms the sway of Bitmain over ‘proxy’ mining pools.

Although bitcoin miners are technically able to switch mining pools as they wish, this research reveals that as a practical matter, many of them rarely if ever switch away from Bitmain-led work templates.

A detailed follow-up analysis applied a weighted similarity score of transaction ordering and block templates across 37% of Bitcoin’s hashrate. The analysis revealed that many supposedly independent mining pools are mostly passing along Bitmain-templated work to their miners.

Read more: New research suggests Bitcoin mining centralized around Bitmain

Specifically, Poolin and BTC.com are 99% and 98% similar to the Bitmain-operated AntPool.

Although these three mining pools are the most similar, there are even more proxy-like relationships with others. Blocks produced by pool operators Ultimus, Braiins, Binance, and Spider also have over 80% correlation to this Bitmain-led trio.

It has never been a secret that Bitmain manufactured the world’s overwhelming, physical majority of bitcoin mining machines. However, its lesser-known role in the day-to-day operations of bitcoin mining pools is now under scrutiny thanks to original research by 0xB10C.

The ongoing research series by 0xB10C and Mononaut is careful to disclaim that the similarity of work across pools and miners accepting block templates from Bitmain entities does not necessarily indicate that Bitmain controls their work.

Indeed, miners often accept Bitmain defaults and block templates out of convenience — not because they are succumbing to an explicit directive.

0xB10C operates Bitcoin network monitoring tools like miningpool-observer and peer-observer, and fork-observer. The researcher is also a long-term recipient of a philanthropic grant from OpenSats.

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Much like hopeful lottery players who play despite knowing the odds are stacked firmly against them, there are still bitcoin miners who refuse to join a conventional mining pool.

Defiant, they choose to work alone — the solo miners of the Bitcoin network.

Solo mining is risky and mathematically irrational. Almost every miner joins large pools — usually set up to benefit Bitmain — for their predictable revenue. The chances of correctly solving Bitcoin’s mathematical puzzle working alone are nearly 0%.

Yet ‘near zero’ doesn’t equal zero. Protos has put together a chart detailing when in the past 10 years, solo bitcoin miners have struck it lucky — click here to view.

Depending on the definition of a ‘solo-mined’ block, there might be fewer than 300 such blocks produced in the last decade of Bitcoin’s existence. According to a March 10, 2023 estimate, solo miners’ luck had dwindled to one block every 10 months on average.

To put that single block into context, conventional pools usually mine 43,200 blocks every 10 months.

Others estimate the odds at even worse than that one in 43,200. Hass McCook of the Bitcoin Mining Council claimed the odds were “one in 1,400,000.”

However, neither of those estimates has predicted the 11 solo-mined blocks found within the past six months. Over the past few months at least, solo miners have been enjoying a hot streak of luck.

Read more: First bitcoin mining pool adds Stratum V2 feature to circumvent Bitmain

So, how many total blocks have solo miners mined since Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared in 2011? Cointelegraph estimated the number of solo mined blocks at just 270 as of March 2023.

However, it’s impossible to know the exact number. First of all, miners don’t have to disclose their membership in any pool. Although solo blocks are usually obvious by their irregular data, sophisticated solo miners could attempt to disguise their rogue block by using lookalike templates and headers.

The very non-pool-like ‘pool’ for solo miners

The vast majority of blocks discovered by solo miners in the past decade have come from the Solo CK Pool.

A mining ‘pool’ only by the strictest of definitions, Solo CK is, in effect, a non-pool service for solo miners who aren’t hyper-privacy conscious. Unlike a pool, miners who point hash rate to the service pay for 100% of their own mining costs, receive $0 compensation for working without mining a block, and receive 98% (less a 2% convenience fee) of their coinbase reward when they mine a block.

Retrieving all blocks tagged ‘Solo CK Pool’ reveals 275 solo-mined blocks — possibly the majority of what is likely a maximum of a few hundred solo-mined blocks since 2011.

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A few months ago, Swan Bitcoin was climbing the ranks among the world’s largest Bitcoin companies. It passed $220 million in annualized revenue, planned to IPO on the Nasdaq, was mining 1.7% of the entire Bitcoin network (11.3 exahashes per second), and scheduled its third annual conference along with an additional events business.

Not only that, on May 7, Swan confirmed rumors that had circulated since January that it had partnered with Tether for its Managed Mining business.

As of January 12, the company had taken in approximately $25 million of a $30 million convertible note leading into its Series C financing. As Wall Street knows, by the time a company gets past a C or D round, an IPO is likely around the corner.

However, a few days ago, Swan announced a massive round of layoffs, canceled its conference, and suspended its IPO plans. According to CEO Cory Klippsten, the IPO plan was shelved because Swan “didn’t carry forward with a big financing partner for our Managed Mining business.”

Protos asked the Swan CEO to explain the cancellation.

Swan CEO Cory Klippsten on IPO, downsizing

According to Klippsten, the IPO plan depended on revenue from Swan’s mining joint venture that Swan managed since inception. “The recent disagreement with a major capital partner meant that we no longer have a path to IPO in the near term and also no longer have the expectation of significant near-term cash flow from mining,” he told Protos.

Klippsten also denied that there were ulterior reasons for the cancellation, explaining that four of Swan’s major products have been performing well. “Financial services revenue was up 132% year-over-year in the first half of 2024, with significant growth across all four of our major products: Swan App, Swan Private, Swan IRA, and Swan Vault,” he said.

Although Swan increased marketing expenses and deliberately hired more employees in anticipation of filing for SEC approval of its IPO documents, “With the reason and the cash for aggressive spending gone, we had to cut both marketing and staff,” Klippsten concluded.

Read more: Some Swan Bitcoin customers lose banking access

Swan responds to withdrawal processing times

In the wake of the disappointing IPO and downsizing news, critics were quick to sound alarms about customers withdrawing their bitcoin. The history of crypto has endless examples of small financial problems cascading into major catastrophes from Vauld, Celius, Voyager, FTX, or countless others, so their concerns were understandable.

So far, Swan has processed withdrawal requests and aims to assure its customers that it is unlike those failures. Swan co-founder Yan Pritzker responded to the most vocal criticism directly, clarifying that although compliance has extended withdrawal times recently, Swan is honoring all valid withdrawal requests.

Bitcoin transaction fees

Other critics highlighted a potential mismatch between the self-custody practice that Swan encourages and Bitcoin’s expensive fees for on-chain withdrawals. Indeed, Swan is a vocal proponent of self-custody, encouraging customers to withdraw their purchases. However, it is expensive to deal with small amounts of bitcoin due to persistently high bids for block space.

Specifically, bids for a single bitcoin transaction are currently $0.56 and occasionally spike above $100. For distinct withdrawals of just a few dollars apiece, critics speculated that Bitcoin’s fees might be a persistent drain on Swan’s profitability.

Klippsten responded to this speculation in a comment to Protos. “Swan offers free automated withdrawals at certain thresholds that create reasonably sized UTXOs. Some clients like to withdraw based on time, not amount. For these clients, we provide an option to withdraw weekly. We tell clients that withdrawing their Bitcoin once it reaches a certain threshold reduces future fees and improves privacy. It has no effect on Swan’s finances as we batch withdrawals anyway.”

Read more: Swan Bitcoin questioned over unnamed investor and new trading fund

Comments on Pacific Bitcoin, Vault, and Force

Protos also asked Klippsten to explain the reasons for canceling what would have been its third annual Pacific Bitcoin conference. “We’re fully focused on Swan’s core business right now, and after going through a staff reduction last month, it just doesn’t feel like the right time for a festival,” he explained. “We’re doing a smaller one-day event for clients and partners during the conference’s planned dates, and we hope to bring Pacific Bitcoin back in 2025.”

Klippsten also confirmed to Protos that, despite the latest round of staff cuts, Swan Vault and Swan Force are still operational.

“We already built and launched Swan Vault [which] gives clients full control over their money without having to go it alone,” he said.

“Swan Vault has its roots in our acquisition of Specter Solutions and its team in 2022, which drove development of the open-source Specter Desktop project.”

Klippsten also reiterated that “Swan Force, our referral program, still exists.”

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The founder and CEO of prominent bitcoin mining pool f2pool is set to ‘command’ the first ever human spaceflight to fly over the North and South Poles in a mission launched by SpaceX. 

Chun Wang, who is also CEO of blockchain validator firm Stakefish, announced his participation in the Fram2 mission yesterday.

According to SpaceX, Wang is slated to be Fram2’s ‘commander.’ According to the mission’s website, the crew for the three to five-day flight includes a ‘vehicle pilot’ and a ‘mission specialist’ with impressive polar exploration credentials. However, there’s no specific mention of any significant space-going experience.

Read more: BitMEX’s bitcoin moon mission could be lost in space after fuel leak

Indeed, SpaceX notes this will be the crew’s first spaceflight so it’s not immediately clear what Wang’s role will entail.

Despite similarities between the name of the mission and that of Wang’s mining firm, Fram2 is, according to the website, named after the ship that carried the Norwegian expedition that pipped the British to the South Pole in 1911.

However, Crypto sleuth Truth Labs has highlighted its similarity to FRAM JPEG Capital, who they say laundered funds for the Bit front exploit, Ronin Exploit, and Luna Foundation.

Protos has reached out to Fram2 to confirm what Wang’s role in the mission will entail.

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Paraguay has shut down more than 70 illegal bitcoin mines in the past five years, according to the country’s national energy supplier.

Illegal mines in Paraguay reportedly steal up to $60 million worth of electricity every year — enough to light a city, according to the Administración Nacional de Electricidad (ANDE). 

The Economist reports that illegal bitcoin miners contribute to an increasing number of blackouts in the country by overloading power lines unable to cope with increased demand.

ANDE has also admitted that seven of its own engineers are under investigation after they were accused of illegally installing crypto mines using the energy provider’s own power transformers.

The Paraguayan Fintech Chamber lobby group says that thanks to a combination of low taxes, predictable politics, and cheap imports of equipment, Paraguay is a mecca for crypto miners.

Read more: Malaysian minister says crypto miners behind $722M electricity theft

However, the Economist reports that public anger toward these crypto miners has pushed the government to enact laws that will allow its courts to sentence energy thieves to up to 10 years. 

In 2018, 90% of Paraguay’s energy was supplied by the Itaipu Dam. There are 50 bitcoin miners reportedly paying ANDE a tariff so that they can use the spare energy generated from the dam.

Elsewhere, the Malaysian government also claims illegal crypto miners stole $722 million worth of electricity between 2018 and 2023. This is roughly $144 million per year. 

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