Africa’s Bitcoin Mining Hashrate Exfiltration Problem
November 22, 2025
In 2025, Africa is leading the green energy revolution through Bitcoin mining, with more governments looking to integrate it to tackle electrification, improve energy grid management, address long-standing infrastructure challenges, and benefit from the economic upside.
However, these developments, and many others arising on the African continent, do not exist in a vacuum. On the contrary, as Africa’s share of global Bitcoin mining hashrate is on a steep incline, now accounting for just under 4%, according to Luxor’s Hashrate Index, the question now is how that hash power is being used and by whom.
The Bitcoin Hashrate Exfiltration Problem
Presently, though not widely reported, a significant number of miners are connected to pools outside Africa and host ASICs (the devices used for Bitcoin mining) for large Bitcoin miners outside Africa. As such, if this trend persists, we can imagine many of these miners and mining pools that must be compliant with OFAC lists and other US regulations could be forced to ban inclusion of transactions originating from African countries that exist on—or may join—this list, thereby defeating a key component of Bitcoin as a permissionless money.
Put simply, “hashrate exfiltration” is the use of a region’s hashrate by a foreign entity or power in furtherance of its interests, often at the region’s expense.
The broader conversation about what we might call the hashrate exfiltration problem is not limited to Africa; it is a global issue. However, it is essential to situate it within the African context as a backdrop for those studying the rise of Bitcoin mining in Africa, especially from a geostrategic and economic lens.
As we welcome the monumental developments in Africa’s evolving transition at the forefront of the global digital revolution, keen observers must hope that governments and policymakers are aware of these edge cases and take steps to address them before it is too late. The legacy of resource extraction in Africa may see another unfortunate renaissance in Bitcoin mining if care is not taken.
Bridging The Gap With Bitcoin As A Commodity
For Africa, beyond the immediate concerns about potential censorship, the wider conversation is about how the continent capitalizes on Bitcoin both as an infrastructure and a commodity.
In an interview for this article with Erik Hersman, CEO of Gridless, the Kenya-based Bitcoin mining company, when asked about this question remarked, “I don’t think the answer is not to have foreign companies mining [Bitcoin] in Africa.” He believes, as do many others on the continent, that there are nuances and a middle ground that can be struck across the value chain that address the problem on multiple layers.
Bitcoin’s advantage over traditional extractive industries is that, as Erik put it, it is not the regular getting paid in USD for a country’s raw materials and resources; instead, with Bitcoin, African countries “can also be paid in the same commodity [that is, Bitcoin] and therefore get an added benefit as a part of their treasury.”
Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a good case study to buttress the point here. Despite its vast capacity for electrification, the asset wasn’t effectively utilized. However, Bitcoin mining introduced a concrete solution, making electrification viable and monetizing excess energy. As a result, Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) revenues surpassed $100 million in 2025, according to reporting from sputnik news.
Moreover, as Erik closed out in our interview, “as with any commodity, this is about making sure we capture more of the value (money) inside of the continent, and that the benefit flows down to more people on the continent, too.”
Outlook For Bitcoin Mining In Africa
While there is a long road ahead, in 2025, we can still laud the benefits recorded in African countries that have embraced Bitcoin mining, from being paid and building their treasuries in Bitcoin to sustainably expanding electrification at record pace.
In navigating the solution space, entrepreneurs and builders can prioritize building products and services and pushing code changes and proposals in relevant open-source projects that address the continent’s needs. All towards ensuring Bitcoin remains decentralized and independent Internet Money.
For Governments and lawmakers in Africa, the solutions need to be more holistic and sustainable given the multifaceted nature of this problem—it is not just a Bitcoin or Bitcoin Mining problem, it is about markets, geopolitics, energy independence, and sovereignty—we can only monitor the situation, surface positive case studies, and hope for more strategically advantageous MoUs and PPEs.
A key takeaway remains that Bitcoin is not a lifeline for Africa; quite the contrary, Africa is a lifeline for Bitcoin and the ever-evolving tale of financial freedom and nation-state sovereignty in the 21st century. Africa’s resilience against all these odds will set the global template for building resilient money and energy infrastructure, ensuring a future of hope and abundance for all.
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