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How a Renewable Energy-Powered Bitcoin Startup Helps Electrify Rural Africa

CNBC visited a small group of bitcoin miners who "set up shop at the site of an extinct volcano" near Kenya's Hell's Gate National Park. Their mine "consists of a single 500-kilowatt mobile container that, from the outside, looks like a small residential trailer." But what's more interesting is i...

It's one of six mines run by the company in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia, powered by a mix of renewable inputs and working toward a broader mission of securing and decentralizing the bitcoin network... They landed on the idea of bitcoin mining, which could potentially solve a big problem for renewable energy developers by taking their stranded power and spreading it to other parts of the continent. The company's mines also have delivered power for containerized cold storage for local farmers, battery charging stations for electric motorcycles and public WiFi points.

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