We now have official EEP data that shows Bitcoin mining has nearly doubled Ethiopia’s annual net transmission grid expansion rate Even more importantly, it has catalyzed an unprecedented level of new construction activity never before reported by EEP at this scale. Consider of power to rural Africa, alongside combatting youth unemployment is one of the two biggest political changes in sub-Saharan Africa. Bitcoin mining has just demonstrated it can be a viable solution for one of them Let's dig in. Ethiopia made $220 million from Bitcoin mining in 2024/25 which is expecting to increase to $312 million this year (source: capitalethiopia.com/2025/11/02/eep… This electricity would otherwise have been wasted Why? Although Ethiopia has the capacity to generate 6 Gigawatts from the new dam, Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) hasn't yet built the transmission lines to supply all that electricity generated. So, in the meantime the dam authorities sell electricity to Bitcoin mining companies. These electricity sales to Bitcoin miners were 67% of EEP's total Foreign Exchange revenue last year, vastly improving profitability. source: birrmetrics.com/ethiopia-elect… What do they do with that unexpected extra profit? EEP has stated repeatedly that the revenue from Bitcoin mining is used to support "infrastructure expansion" and "rural electrification" source: eep.com.et/?article=ethio… News channel Aljazeera recently confirmed "Ethiopia doesn't yet have the distribution network to take electricity to 1/2 the population...The idea is the fees paid by the Bitcoin miners will go towards funding the expansion of the grid." source: youtube.com/watch?v=mqie7b… Significantly, EEP's own data shows revenue from Bitcoin mining supported EEP's 2024/25 fiscal year * 28,571 km new power lines built * 8,700 substation bays installed Source: birrmetrics.com/ethiopia-elect… Bitcoin mining revenue has already almost doubled EEP's rate of energized network buildout from ~358 km/year average to +662 km last year. But more important is what is in the imminent pipeline: the 28,571 km of new power lines is larger than the entire size of their grid! source: eep.com.et/wp-content/upl… Let's be clear, we cannot say that "Ethiopia build more than their whole grid in a year" because not all of that new capacity has been fully energized yet, so that would be an apples-for-oranges comparison. But it is still an unprecedented rate of new construction. The good news is that the bulk of this infrastructure constructed but not yet fully energized is not “waiting years”, it is in active commissioning right now and is expected to come online progressively over the next 12–18 months. Source: Birr Metrics (EEP’s 2025/26 budget announcement) birrmetrics.com/electric-power… When that new network is fully energized, the increase in the speed of energized network buildout will not be 2x. It will be substantially higher, potentially more than 10-20x the historical average as the backlog comes online. Read that last sentence again. A forecast 10-20x faster buildout of Ethiopia's electrical grid. Rural electrification of Sub-Saharan Africa is a key strategic focus for over 20 global institutions and development banks, including the UN, World Bank, IRENA, African Development Bank, and Rockefeller Foundation. It is even explicitly one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 7), where Target 7.1 calls for “universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services by 2030.” Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 85% of the world’s people still without electricity (mostly in rural areas), making this one of the biggest global priorities. How Ethiopia is achieving this should be one of the biggest stories at the UN right now. Far from “taking renewable power away” from people, Bitcoin mining’s use of otherwise wasted renewable energy is catalyzing the accelerated delivery of electricity to rural Africa. Bitcoin mining has created a pragmatic solution to an issue that has plagued powerful global institutions for decades. If you are still gaslighting Bitcoin mining in 2026 (based on early studies, now been widely debunked), you are no longer just uninformed. You are perpetuating harmful myths that slows down power delivery to people living without electricity.