Paraguay is no stranger to "drug busts and bank heists," but in recent years the South American country has become a "mecca" for a very different type of crime: illegal Bitcoin mining. Power worth about $60 million a year – "enough to light up a city" – is being stolen by unlicensed cryptocurrency miners, said The Economist, and there is heated debate over how to tackle the issue.Â
Besides "soybeans, timber and a massive cow population," Paraguay has "very cheap electricity," said El PaÃs, and this is why "more and more Bitcoin generators" are heading there. But the licensed crypto generators who have set up shop in Paraguay have been joined by dozens of cowboy operations that don't pay the tariff and engage in energy theft that "annoys many Paraguayans," and is now starting to impact the country's energy security.Â
The country's "creaking transmission lines" are "increasingly overloaded" and the capital Asunción suffers regular power cuts, causing "food to rot and office workers to broil in the sub-tropical heat," said The Economist. The government has declared what it calls an "all-out attack" on crypto cowboys. This month the Senate approved jail sentences of up to ten years for energy thieves. Authorities recently confiscated 450 Bitcoin mining machines – bringing the total number seized from illegal operators this year to more than 10,000.Â
Yet a group of "industrial players" has advised against moves that could "kill off" the sector, claiming a clampdown could hurt Paraguay's standing in the international business community, cost the nation up to $1.5 billion, and jeopardize "hundreds" of jobs. |