On a factory floor in Caracas, the din of dozens of computers working non-stop is deafening. This is the sound of a bitcoin mine — one of several in a country where cheap electricity has made cryptocurrency mining a rare profitable endeavor.
At the enterprise called Doctorminer, in eastern Caracas, nearly 80 computers — worth about US$400 apiece and each the size of a shoebox — generate about US$10,000 in bitcoin equivalent per month.
The process produces intense heat, which requires the constant cooling power of four large fans.
Photo: AFP
The electricity bill for all this?
“I think not even US$10 a month,” said Theodoro Toukoumidis, chief executive officer of Doctorminer, which was founded to erect cryptocurrency mines countrywide and provide the required machines.
“We have discovered a way to generate income effortlessly ... transforming energy into money,” he said.
In a country in recession and contending with the world’s highest inflation of nearly 3,000 percent last year, cryptocurrency mining presents an economic opportunity for a lucky few.
This is made possible by one of the world’s lowest electricity prices: The commodity is heavily subsidized by the Venezuelan government.
“Mining” is one way of producing cryptocurrency, putting high-powered computers to work to solve complicated mathematical problems — and the price of electricity is a major obstacle for miners in many countries.
Yet the rock-bottom rate in Venezuela overrides most other considerations, including power cuts — frequent in a country where public services have all but collapsed, but less spotty in the capital, Caracas, than elsewhere.
Nor are cryptopreneurs in Venezuela put off by Latin America’s third-lowest fixed broadband Internet speed.
“To mine you don’t need super-high-speed Internet,” cryptocurrency researcher and economist Aaron Olmos said.
Toukoumidis sold his car and his partner a motorcycle, each to buy a mining computer.
In 2016, in the dining room of his house, the pair began to build computers to sell.
The venture proved popular, with many people wanting to invest, even “without understanding anything at all” about cryptocurrency mining, Olmos said.
Today, Doctorminer has about 1,500 miners connected to its grid, the company’s Web site says.
As the value of the bolivar has been decimated by years of economic crisis, bitcoin has become increasingly accepted as currency in Caracas.
“Having crypto money is a way out of hyperinflation ... an extra tool for confronting the crisis,” Olmos said.
According to Olmos’ consulting outfit Olmost Group Venezuela, transactions with cryptocurrency peaked at US$303 million in Venezuela in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is nowhere near the full value of cryptocurrency in circulation, as it does not factor in the currency generated by mining, he said.
“There is a massive economic activity that is unseen,” Olmos said.
Pedro, a miner, bought two “video cards” with which to mine cryptocurrency in 2017 for US$800.
He said he made his money back in three months, estimating that he has earned about US$20,000 in total.
However, the windfall brought about unforeseen difficulties — the reason Pedro declined to give his full name.
The currency and the practice of mining it are legal, but police frequently arrest miners for failing to jump through bureaucratic hoops.
Reports of extortion are rife in the country that ranks a lowly 176 out of 180 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, and where public officials demanding bribes is a common problem.
Many Venezuelan miners end up behind bars for lacking paperwork, specialist Web sites such as CriptoNoticias say.
“It is something that is better not to talk about,” added Pedro, of his line of work.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
RSS