Climate Change and Crypto: Ethiopia’s 75% Power Cut Tests Bitcoin Mining’s Green Pitch

In climate change crypto news, Bitcoin miners have spent years pitching hydropower as proof the network can run clean. Ethiopia just showed what happens when the water backing that pitch stops showing up on schedule.

The state utility slashed electricity supplied to Bitcoin and other data-mining companies by roughly 75%, leaving them with about 23% of contracted power.

The question worth asking isn't whether climate change killed Bitcoin mining in Ethiopia; it didn't, but whether this is an isolated dry spell or a preview of what hydro-dependent mining hubs should expect more often.

This news dropped as BTC USD trades for $76,850, down -1.2% over the past 24 hours, following a -2.2% drop over the last seven days. Daily trading volume sits at $31.9Bn.

SOURCE: TradingView

Climate Change Crypto News: Why Ethiopia's Hydro-Powered Mining Bet Is Under Stress

Bitcoin-mining companies accounted for 35% of Ethiopian Electric Power Corp.'s revenue in the past financial year and consumed almost a third of the country's total electricity production of 9,730 megawatts, according to Bloomberg.

That's not a rounding error in a national power system; it's a customer segment large enough to move the utility's balance sheet and its dispatch decisions in the same breath.