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6 May 2026, 07:04

Colombia’s President Petro Eyes Bitcoin Mining Push, Citing Untapped Caribbean Renewables

Colombian President Gustavo Petro expressed his eagerness to join in on the Bitcoin mining boom that’s taking place in Latin America. In an X post shared on Tuesday, Petro highlighted how Venezuela and Paraguay are examples of countries that are already drawing in mining investment through surplus clean energy and argued that Colombia’s Caribbean coast holds a similar, untapped opportunity. In his X post, he specifically called out cities like Santa Marta, Barranquilla and Riohacha as possible hubs while proposing models where indigenous Wayú communities could participate as co-owners in energy and mining ventures. Si las monedas virtuales se basan en energía fósil estalla el calentamiento mundial y el colapso climático Hoy los países con abundantes energías limpias encerradas como Venezuela y Paraguay, logran atraer las inversiones en minería del bitcoin. La.minería del bitcoin es el… https://t.co/KroCrG9qkD — Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) May 5, 2026 In terms of energy sourcing, President Petro was very clear on this stance. He expressed how mining via fossil fuels is detrimental to the climate but doubled down on how the industry becomes a great economic engine when built on renewables. His post referenced analysis from Luxor’s Alessandro Cecere, known as Sultan Bitcoin, who has mapped out how the hydroelectric surplus in Paraguay turned a country of seven million into the world’s fourth largest Bitcoin mining jurisdiction. Paraguay Already Did It. The Question Is Whether Colombia Can Follow. The numbers behind Paraguay’s rise are hard to ignore. According to Hashrate Index’s State of Bitcoin Mining in Latin America (2026) report, Paraguay commands roughly 43 EH/s, or 4.3% of global hashrate as of Q2 2026. It sits behind only the United States, Russia and China. The reason comes down to one structural advantage: the Itaipú Dam generates far more electricity than the country consumes, pricing industrial power between $0.037 and $0.050 per kilowatt-hour. Institutional operators like HIVE Digital Technologies and Alps Blockchain have built out significant capacity there, treating the country as a long-term base rather than a short-term play. The same report highlights that the rest of Latin America, Brazil aside, accounts for just 1–2% of global hashrate despite sitting on massive renewable reserves. Brazil’s hashrate grew 133% year-over-year to 3.5 EH/s after deregulation of its electricity market opened the door for miners to negotiate directly with generators. Venezuela remains at the potential stage. Its hydroelectric infrastructure and stranded gas reserves look good on paper, but regulatory whiplash and ongoing miner crackdowns have kept institutional capital away. Petro Has Talked About This Before. The Framing Is What’s New. Petro first floated the idea of Bitcoin mining with Colombian renewables back in October 2021, when he was still a senator. At the time, he proposed using waterfalls on the Pacific coast and wind from the La Guajira region to power mining and replace the cocaine economy. He repeated the pitch during his presidential campaign in 2022. But both of those earlier comments were aspirational, aimed at domestic audiences and framed around El Salvador’s volcanic mining experiment. This time is different. Petro is no longer pointing to El Salvador. He’s pointing to Paraguay and Venezuela, two countries where mining activity is either already scaled or actively being courted by institutional operators scouting Latin American sites. The shift from inspiration to competition is significant. Colombia’s energy matrix is already around 75% hydroelectric and the Caribbean coast holds substantial wind capacity that remains largely undeveloped. La Guajira alone has long been identified as one of the most promising wind corridors in the region. The raw ingredients exist. Whether anything materializes depends on the usual barriers: regulatory clarity, grid infrastructure and investor confidence. Specialists noted that scaling this industry requires legal certainty and the ability to attract private capital, neither of which Colombia has established for mining. Argentina’s cautionary tale from the same Hashrate Index report says it all. Despite having some of the best energy assets in the hemisphere, Argentina’s hashrate declined 42% year-over-year due to macroeconomic instability. Good energy alone doesn’t build a mining industry. The policy environment has to match. There’s a middle ground between leaving money in the bank and rolling the dice in crypto. Start with this free video on decentralized finance .

6 May 2026, 06:43

Colombian president says Bitcoin mining could transform country's Caribbean coast

The Colombian president pointed to the impact Bitcoin mining has had in Paraguay, which is now the fourth-largest Bitcoin mining country by hashrate.

5 May 2026, 15:09

Interhash Launched AI Compute for Mining Operations, Extending Infrastructure Beyond Bitcoin

First GPU-powered AI mining servers now operational, bridging the gap between Bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence workloads CEO of Interhash Alexander Lozben announced that its first GPU-powered AI mining servers are live. The pilot marks entry into high-performance compute – not a pivot from Bitcoin mining, but a parallel, complementary use of the same physical foundation. Bitcoin mining and AI compute have always shared power, cooling, and facility infrastructure. Only the hardware layer and economic logic differ. With nearly a decade of mining infrastructure experience, Interhash is now adding AI compute as a natural next step. “As a result, Interhash improves asset utilization by ensuring infrastructure generates value across different market conditions. The flexibility to allocate capacity between mining and AI compute allows us to prioritize the highest-margin workload at any given time. Ultimately, this hybrid model strengthens margin stability and positions Interhash as a more resilient, multi-vertical compute operator”, - said CEO Alexander Lozben. Traditional Bitcoin mining remains core. AI compute is not replacing it but serves as an additional, complementary stream. GPU workloads and ASIC mining represent different load profiles on the same infrastructure. When mining margins compress, AI compute absorbs capacity. When Bitcoin rallies, operations lean into hashrate. The pilot is deployed, with performance metrics actively monitored. About Interhash : an international company specializing in digital assets and blockchain technologies. Operating across CIS, Middle East, Europe, and Central Asia, Interhash provides comprehensive mining solutions and is the official ViaBTC mining pool representative in Europe and CIS regions. Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

5 May 2026, 15:00

From bitcoin mining to the Hill: AIP’s new fellow brings hands-on crypto experience to D.C.

Jacob Smagula previously worked on the government affairs team at bitcoin mining company MARA and is currently on the policy team at the DeFi Education Fund.

5 May 2026, 14:51

GoMining Launches GoBTC to Bring Native Instant Payments to Bitcoin

BitcoinWorld GoMining Launches GoBTC to Bring Native Instant Payments to Bitcoin Miami, FL, USA GoBTC is a protocol that lets consumers make native and instant payments on Bitcoin’s base layer. GoMining launches its own mining pool to prioritize GoBTC transaction confirmation, targeting a 12-hour final on-chain settlement by the end of 2026. The launch marks a strategic expansion for GoMining, a platform with 5 million users. GoBTC extends this ecosystem into everyday payments. GoMining today launches GoBTC , a Bitcoin payment protocol that delivers on what the 2008 whitepaper promised: peer-to-peer electronic payments. GoBTC enables free and instant Bitcoin payments on the core Bitcoin layer. This makes it practical to use Bitcoin at the point of sale for everyday purchases. Payments are free for end-users and merchants pay a small acquiring fee that undercuts traditional card processing. GoBTC is designed as an open infrastructure. GoMining operates the reference implementation, but any wallet provider — from Ledger to Trust Wallet to MetaMask — can integrate the protocol to offer instant Bitcoin payments to their users. Why this matters Bitcoin is the dominant cryptocurrency with a market cap above $1.5 trillion. Over 150 public companies hold BTC on their balance sheets. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, which didn’t exist two years ago, now manage roughly $100 billion in assets across a dozen funds. The U.S. government holds approximately 328,000 BTC. But Bitcoin still can’t process a retail transaction quickly and reliably. The Lightning Network, introduced in 2018 to solve this problem, took seven years to reach $1 billion in monthly volume and its average transaction of $223 mostly reflects exchange-to-exchange flows, not someone paying for groceries. In the US, about 22% of adults own Bitcoin, yet there are only 2,300 U.S. businesses that accept Bitcoin directly, and the gap between how many people own Bitcoin and how many places accept it is widening. “The first line of the Bitcoin whitepaper describes a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Bitcoin was designed to be money, not just an asset. That promise is still unfulfilled, and we intend to deliver on it,” said Mark Zalan, CEO of GoMining. “We already serve millions of users, and run data centers on three continents. All of this provides us a unique position to enable native Bitcoin payments with GoBTC.” Mining-powered confirmation GoBTC enables free and instant payments in Bitcoin, using GoMining’s own mining infrastructure to confirm the transactions. It uses a 2-of-3 multi-signature architecture shared between the user, GoMining, and a regulated third-party custodian. GoMining serves 5 million users globally. The company has created a dedicated mining pool for processing GoBTC transactions, aiming for a 12-hour on-chain settlement by the end of 2026. Where most payment companies depend on third-party pools for confirmation, GoMining mines the blocks itself. The pool also serves GoMining’s “digital miners” — users who own tokenized hashrate through GoMining’s app. A portion of GoBTC transaction fees flows back to these miners as additional BTC yield: consumers pay with BTC, merchants earn BTC, miners earn a share of payment fees, and GoMining’s pool processes the transactions. Any wallet provider, whether hardware, software, or custodial, can connect to the GoBTC network and enable instant Bitcoin payments for their users. Bitcoin payments for Merchants For merchants, GoBTC is a Bitcoin-native acquiring network that undercuts every major card processor on cost. Its acquiring fee of 0.2% is substantially lower than traditional card processing, which range from 1.5% to 3.5% in the US. On a $100 sale, the merchant keeps $99.80. GoMining distributes the entire fee back into the ecosystem: half goes to the miners who confirm transactions, and half goes to the wallet provider that initiated the payment. GoMining retains nothing on third-party transactions to incentivize wallet integrations and accelerate adoption. Merchants can receive BTC directly to their own wallet, or use GoMining’s custodial merchant solution, which offers yield on their BTC balance — including during the settlement window — and an off-ramp to fiat. GoBTC will ship with a dedicated PoS terminal, a web merchant dashboard, a developer SDK, and plugins for Shopify and WooCommerce in the coming months. The launch coincides with GoMining’s major expansion in the United States. The company is building combined data centers for Bitcoin mining and AI workloads, with a target of securing 1 GW of compute capacity in 2026. GoBTC launches today at Consensus Miami 2026 (May 5–7, Miami Beach Convention Center). About GoMining GoMining is an all-in-one Bitcoin ecosystem that makes it simple and secure to mine, earn, and use Bitcoin every day. GoMining serves 5 million users and ranks among the top-10 Bitcoin miners by hashrate globally, with data centers in the U.S. and internationally. The company makes Bitcoin accessible through tokenized hashrate, daily BTC rewards, and an expanding suite of payment and earning products. For more information, please visit https://gomining.com/ This post GoMining Launches GoBTC to Bring Native Instant Payments to Bitcoin first appeared on BitcoinWorld .

5 May 2026, 14:28

Cipher Digital loses $114 million in Q1 as bitcoin miner accelerates AI data center pivot

The company has been pivoting from a pure-play mining model and toward leasing power and infrastructure to AI and cloud providers.