Paraguay’s state electricity monopoly, Administración Nacional de Electricidad (ANDE), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with infrastructure company Morphware to launch a Bitcoin mining program powered by thousands of mining machines and seized surplus electricity.
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In one of its first moves, Paraguay’s state-owned energy company is about to become a bitcoin miner. ANDE has signed a formal agreement with Morphware to build a state-owned mining program that uses two things in the country: mining rigs and cheap hydroelectricity from the Itaipu Dam.
In effect, ANDE will host and own the mining operation. Instead of exporting that energy at the low rates specified in the contract, the utility transfers some of it to a bitcoin mining facility it controls. Morphware will act as a technical advisor rather than a putative partner: according to Morphware founder and CEO Kenso Trabing, since ANDE has no Bitcoin mining experience, the company’s role will be “advisory.”
The pilot phase will install around 1,500 captive miners in existing utility buildings adjacent to substations that can be converted into main mining facilities with proper ventilation, transformers, distribution units and metering.
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Get the background
The decision comes after a series of nationwide raids since early 2024, as ANDE moved against illegal and fraudulent high-voltage connections used by illegal miners. Most of the vehicles entering the program were seized between May and June 2024, when authorities stepped up inspections at mining hotspots.
In Salto del Guaira alone, ANDE confiscated 2,738 mining rigs after discovering a massive load connection worth about 1.1 billion guaranties (about $146,000) per month, along with dozens of similar operations that brought the total stock of ASIC units to three,030.
Yet another state is turning to bitcoin
Paraguay’s move joins a small but growing group of states looking to turn energy policy into hash rate. El Salvador has already wrapped Bitcoin into its official currency, diverted geothermal power from state-owned plants to mining facilities, and added these coins to its government-controlled BTC reserves, along with its “volcano bond” ambitions, as reported by our sister site Bitcoinist. To the east, Bhutan’s sovereign wealth fund has been quietly managing hydropower since at least 2019, using the excess electricity from its dams to accumulate Bitcoin on the kingdom’s balance sheet and, more recently, to support new digital and “thinking city” projects.
ANDE-Morphware’s experience in Paraguay is the hydropower and Latin American version of the same playbook: keep the energy in-house, own the infrastructure, and let the state, not just private miners, take the lead.
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