Hashrate Index: Analyzing the Current State of Bitcoin Mining in Latin America in 2026

Author: Hashrate Index

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Latin America has the energy reserves to become a global Bitcoin mining powerhouse, but that goal has not yet been achieved.

Latin America has the world’s richest renewable power resources: Brazil’s Parana River hydropower cascade development system, Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale gas belt, Venezuela’s Caroni River basin, Paraguay’s Itaipu Dam, and geothermal reservoirs in Central America’s volcanic zones. Industrial electricity prices in multiple countries in the region can rival the lowest-cost Bitcoin mining jurisdictions worldwide.

Even so, Latin America’s share in the global Bitcoin hashrate landscape is only about 5–6%. And the United States alone (according to Luxor’s global hashrate heat map) accounts for 37.4%.

The mismatch between energy potential and the current state of mining is the main storyline behind the development of Bitcoin mining in Latin America. This article will analyze this reality in depth, breaking down each market by country to identify core advantages, structural obstacles, and the prerequisites needed to unlock growth potential.

Key Takeaways

Paraguay is the only Bitcoin mining market in Latin America to reach a world-class level. As of Q2 2026, its total hashrate is approximately 43EH/s, representing 4.3% of the global share and ranking fourth worldwide—an achievement driven by a landlocked country with a population of only 7 million. The main reason is the structural hydropower surplus from the Itaipu Dam, which has pushed industrial electricity prices down to about $0.037–0.050 per kWh.

Brazil is emerging as a true competitor. Its hashrate grew year over year by +133%, reaching 3.5EH/s. In 2024, Brazil’s decision to open the free power market (ACL) to large users indicates that this is infrastructure investment rather than arbitrage behavior. The final answer will be revealed in Q3 and Q4 2026.

Bolivia’s year-over-year hashrate growth of as much as +2,400% is, in essence, a policy arbitrage based on natural gas price subsidies. About 70% of the country’s grid depends on natural gas power generation. Its gas supply price is only $1.30/MMBTU, while international market prices are $8–12/MMBTU. The effective term of this subsidy is 2–5 years.

Argentina has nearly unparalleled energy endowments among the countries on this list, yet its hashrate fell year over year by 42%. Vaca Muerta is a world-class asset, and YPF is already mining Bitcoin using associated gas. Milei’s energy deregulation could change the landscape. However, macro tailwinds have not yet been able to offset short-term volatility—major data-driven declines are mainly attributable to a strategy change by a single leading operator: Bitfarms (now renamed Keel Infrastructure) shut down its 40MW mining farm in Argentina.

Venezuela’s total hashrate is about 5EH/s, with around 10GW of idle hydropower energy, 36GW of installed capacity, and associated gas flaring from the Orinoco oil belt, the Maracaibo basin, and the Monagas and Anzoátegui oil fields—daily emissions equivalent to roughly 300,000 barrels of oil. Under the recently issued OFAC General License GL 48A, U.S. authorized companies may generate, transmit/distribute, store, and sell electricity in Venezuela. Off-grid mining may become the entry point for foreign miners to test Venezuela.

El Salvador’s hashrate is 1.1EH/s. The country’s grid installed capacity is 2.2GW, but its geothermal capacity is expected to increase by as much as 400MW in the long term. The country became a narrative frontrunner in mining by first partnering with Tether through its “Volcano Energy” public-private partnership project.

The implications for the global down-cycle in Q2 2026: compressing hashrate prices can distinguish durable mining markets from arbitrage behavior. Paraguay stayed; Bolivia withdrew; and Brazil accelerated expansion. This pattern itself is a diagnosis.

Global Landscape

In Q2 2026, global Bitcoin mining hashrate fell to 1,004EH/s, down 5.8% from 1,066EH/s in Q1. The direct cause is that the Bitcoin price dropped from roughly $124k in October 2025 to about $65k in February 2026, pushing the hashrate price to an all-time low of approximately $27.89/PH/s/day. Around 252EH/s of older equipment (miners with energy efficiency above 25J/TH) was forced offline because it could not cover operating costs.

At the top of the hashrate ranking, the situation remains unchanged as ever: the United States at 37.4%, Russia at 16.9%, and China at 12.0%. These three countries together control about 65% of the global hashrate.

Next is Paraguay in fourth place, with a 4.3% global hashrate share (about 43EH/s)—a small landlocked country with a population of 7 million, on par with the United States, Russia, and China, and now among the top four dominant Bitcoin mining jurisdictions worldwide.

The rest of Latin America—Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela, El Salvador, and other countries in the region—collectively account for about 1–2% of global hashrate. Understanding why this is the case, and whether this pattern will change, is the core question addressed in the rest of this article.

Comparison of Latin American Countries’ Hashrate Shares

Data Source: Hashrate Index global hashrate heat map, Q2 2026. The EH/s values include uncertainties inherent in the hashrate attribution methodology.

Paraguay: How It Became the Fourth Largest Mining Country Globally

To understand why Paraguay ranks fourth in global Bitcoin mining, you only need to understand one number: 3,480MW.

This is roughly the surplus between Paraguay’s hydropower generation and the actual consumption of its 7 million people. In December 2025, peak domestic demand was 5,280MW; available installed capacity is about 8,760MW. The difference is essentially zero-cost surplus electricity (from dams that have long been fully depreciated) that must find a destination. This surplus is the fundamental reason Paraguay became a Bitcoin mining hub.

The Itaipu Dam on the Parana River is the core engine. Itaipu’s total installed capacity is 14,000MW, equipped with 20 Francis turbines. It is one of the largest power stations ever built. Under the treaty, Paraguay holds a 50% share—7,000MW. The plant supplies about 86.3% of Paraguay’s electricity demand. The Yacyretá Dam jointly built with Argentina contributes an additional 1,600MW on the Paraguay side, while the Acaray plant adds 210MW, which is 100% owned by the state.

Paraguay cannot consume all of this electricity domestically. Historically, based on the 1973 Itaipu Treaty, it sold surplus power to Brazil at below-market prices. This treaty structure is also the root reason industrial users in Paraguay enjoy ultra-low electricity prices. ANDE (National Electricity Administration) charges large industrial consumers (GCIE category, covering metallurgy, data centers, and Bitcoin mining operators) electricity at a demand fee of $5.27/kW/month at a 220kV voltage and an energy fee of $0.03725/kWh. At high utilization, the all-in estimate is about $0.040–0.050/kWh—among the lowest industrial electricity prices globally.

This electricity price is not a subsidy in the traditional sense; it truly reflects the production economics of fully depreciated hydropower assets with nearly zero marginal costs. Its sustainability is far more secure than Bolivia’s natural gas subsidies.

Hashrate data confirms this. Against the backdrop of global contraction and hashrate prices hitting historic lows, Paraguay still achieved +54% year-over-year growth. Mining farms operating on cheap baseload hydropower can remain profitable at hashrate price levels where older equipment operating with higher energy costs is fully loss-making.

The country is also attracting AI data center investment through the same mechanism. X8 Cloud USA and ANDE signed a memorandum of understanding to build AI data center complexes using up to 500MW of power—equivalent to the output of a full Itaipu unit. In 2025, ANDE invested a record $349.2 million in grid infrastructure, and it is expanding the 500kV backbone by adding six new lines according to the 2021–2030 master plan.

Luxor’s clients in this market demonstrate the high level of specialization of local operators. The infrastructure company Penguin Group, headquartered in Asunción, built Paraguay’s first large Bitcoin mining and AI data center park near Hernandarias. It actively advocates for placing mining as a national strategic industry. Italian operator Alps Blockchain has, since 2022, developed nine mining farms fully powered by Itaipu hydropower, with cumulative investment exceeding €145 million and hashrate operations of over 250MW across six countries. Both are long-term institutional-grade operators—exactly the kind of typical player supporting a country’s hashrate stability during a down-cycle.

The largest single operator in Latin America is HIVE Digital Technologies (NASDAQ: HIVE). In January 2025, HIVE acquired Bitfarms’ Paraguay operations. Since then, it has expanded its Yguazu park to 300MW of renewable hashrate, and it is advancing a Phase 3 expansion project of 100MW targeted for commissioning in Q3 2026. At that time, its total scale in Paraguay will reach 400MW, making it the largest mining facility in the country. HIVE’s global hashrate grew from 6EH/s at the beginning of 2025 to 25EH/s in November 2025, and its Paraguay business is the core driver of this growth. HIVE is one of the strongest proofs that institutional capital can flow into Latin America when energy economics and the regulatory environment are favorable.

The only structural risk that deserves serious attention is the renegotiation of the Itaipu Treaty. Annex C of the treaty specifies how Paraguay’s surplus electricity is compensated, and historically these prices have been far below market rates. Any renegotiation of the pricing formula could shake the economic foundation that supports Paraguay’s industrial electricity prices. Miners planning 5–10 years of deployment should treat this as a primary variable to monitor.

Brazil: The Most Worthy Market to Watch

Brazil’s hashrate growth explains the issue better than any analysis: in one year it rose from 1.5EH/s to 3.5EH/s, a +133% year-over-year increase—even during a global down-cycle. Operators chasing short-term arbitrage will not build infrastructure during a downturn—they will choose to exit.

Brazil has the grid foundation to support large-scale Bitcoin mining. SIN (Sistema Interconectado Nacional, the national interconnected power system) generated 708.1TWh in 2023, and installed capacity reached approximately 232GW in 2024. Its generation mix is extremely favorable: Itaipu 14,000MW (co-built with Paraguay), Belo Monte 11,233MW (located in Pará and connected to São Paulo via 2,518 kilometers of high-voltage DC transmission lines), Tucuruí 8,370MW, and 19.6GW of wind power distributed across 693 plants. In most days, renewable energy accounts for more than 88–90% of the grid.

Electricity prices vary by region. The South (Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Paraná) has the lowest industrial electricity prices, at about 652 reais/MWh (approximately $0.046/kWh); the nationwide average is about 694 reais/MWh (approximately $0.049/kWh). Although higher than Paraguay, it is comparable to the mid-tier among major global mining jurisdictions.

For Bitcoin miners, the most important recent development is that in 2024 Brazil’s electricity free contract environment (ACL) was fully opened to all high-voltage electricity-using entities (users). ACL allows large consumers—meeting the large-user threshold, including Bitcoin mining operators—to negotiate bilateral contracts directly with generators. This means it is possible to bypass the default distribution providers’ electricity pricing, avoid the risk of additional charges from electricity “surcharges,” and potentially lock in fixed prices for hydropower or wind power over the contract term.

Operators already established in Brazil point to broader opportunities. Minter Digital, a Brazil-based Bitcoin mining company, focuses on deploying operations in remote areas, combining Bitcoin mining with local energy infrastructure. It creates technology jobs in regions far from the industrialized Southeast and improves human development indices. Its core logic is: Brazil’s renewable energy surplus does not have to be obtained only where demand is concentrated; it can be monetized where it is generated, and gradually realized as transmission infrastructure improves.

The problem is the geographic pattern. Brazil’s renewable energy buildout has far outpaced transmission capacity expansion. In 2024, 1,445 renewable energy plants faced curtailment, with a cumulative forced interruption of about 400,000 hours. Since 2021, more than 9.5 million MWh of wind energy in the Northeast has been wasted due to insufficient transmission lines and inability to deliver it to demand areas. The South is currently avoiding this problem—making it the best choice for Bitcoin mining in Brazil.

Bolivia: An Energy Game Racing Against Time

Bolivia’s Bitcoin mining story clearly shows what happens when cheap electricity is driven by policy rather than guaranteed structurally.

About 70% of the country’s grid depends on natural gas-fired power generation. ENDE Andina’s three flagship plants—Trerreios Thermal Power Plant (526.77MW), Sul Thermal Power Plant (505.83MW), and Valles Thermal Power Plant (527.41MW)—form the backbone of SIN. Natural gas is supplied by YPFB at a price of about $1.30/MMBTU, while international market prices are $8–12/MMBTU.

This $6.70–$10.70/MMBTU price gap is the source of Bolivia’s cheap industrial electricity, and it may also explain Bolivia’s +2,400% year-over-year hashrate surge in early 2026—an intelligent arbitrage trade. The problem is that this price gap has an expiration date.

Bolivia’s natural gas reserves are running out. Its thermal power facilities consume about 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. Bolivia will move toward becoming a net importer of natural gas within 2–5 years. Based on market import prices, the annual cost increase is approximately $400 million, exceeding ENDE’s total annual profit of about $160 million. In Q2 2026, Bolivia’s hashrate already showed signs of decline, even though the headline year-over-year number still looks impressive—operators focused on fundamentals have already priced in the end of subsidies.

Bolivia’s truly sustainable opportunity does not rely on thermal power. It exists near renewable assets that do not bear subsidy risk: COBEE’s Gongo hydropower cascade system (10 Pelton turbine power plants, total 188MW), Uyuní solar installations (above 3,700 meters elevation, 62.5MW), the Santa Cruz wind farms (108MW, 30 Vestas 3.6MW turbines), and the 100MW target Coroada Lake geothermal pilot project. Mining operations anchored to these resources are what can help them weather the exit of natural gas subsidies.

Argentina: An Energy Market with High-Quality Assets and Reform Momentum

As of Q2 2026, Argentina’s hashrate is down 42% year over year. The reason is not that Argentina lacks mining energy.

Argentina’s SADI grid has about 43.35GW of installed capacity. Its Patagonia wind belt is among the most productive wind belts in the world. Hydropower infrastructure includes Yacyretá (co-built with Paraguay, reaching 3,100MW), Piedra del Aguila (1,400MW), and El Chocón (1,260MW). In addition, Vaca Muerta is one of the largest unconventional shale gas formations globally. YPF is already running Bitcoin mining pilot projects using associated gas—turning natural gas that would otherwise end up burned in flares into value. This model mirrors Crusoe Energy’s approach built in U.S. shale basins.

Unblock Computos (an Argentina subsidiary of Unblock Global) has already demonstrated the feasibility of associated gas mining. In 2023, it raised $15 million in financing together with Crusoe Energy, Pampa Energia, and Petrocuyo. It deployed Bitcoin mining operations directly at Vaca Muerta oil wells and announced that it positions itself as the world’s second-largest associated gas Bitcoin miner. The U.S. ambassador to Argentina publicly praised the project as an effective way to burn methane, generate electricity, and help Argentina achieve climate goals. The infrastructure is already in operation, and the energy source has been validated. The macroeconomic constraint lies in scaling.

The -42% decline has nothing to do with all the above. The most direct reason for the hashrate decline is Bitfarms (Keel Infrastructure) shutting down its 40MW mining farm in Argentina. This single operational decision accounted for most of the reported contraction. Bitfarms had been one of the country’s largest operators. Its pivot toward AI meant exiting the sector and significantly suppressing the country’s reported hashrate. Therefore, the -42% decline should be understood more as the exit of specific production capacity, rather than an industry-wide collapse.

The decrees 450, 451, and 452/2025 issued by the Milei government are the most important restructuring initiatives in Argentina’s energy sector since the reforms of the 1990s. They promote a shift toward marginal-cost pricing, reduce CAMMESA’s intermediary role, and create a framework for bilateral power purchase agreements between power generators and large industrial users—including Bitcoin miners that may operate under USD-denominated structures. If Argentina’s macro stabilization continues into 2026, the gas from Vaca Muerta, YPF’s mining precedents, and effective bilateral contracts together may reverse the downward hashrate trend. Energy is already there; the variable is macro confidence.

Venezuela: The Largest Opportunity Still Waiting to Be Developed

Venezuela shows about 5EH/s on the global hashrate heat map, indicating that formal mining activity still exists despite harsh operating conditions. The figure is not yet enough for Venezuela to enter the global top ten by hashrate, but it represents that mining farms finding an operational path are already running under current conditions.

What Venezuela has—plus a scale that other Latin American countries cannot replicate equivalently—is the combination of idle energy and an already-open OFAC licensing framework. The power grid is the next logical entry point because without more electricity, there will be no real oil production increase or economic recovery.

Venezuela’s grid has a nominal installed capacity of over 34 million kilowatts, but only about 12–14 million kilowatts can be dispatched in practice. With roughly 30% transmission losses and about 40% distribution losses, for every 100MW generated by the Guri Dam, only about 42MW reaches paying customers. The transmission bottleneck in the Caroni basin is precisely what creates this unique opportunity: the Caroni basin has about 16 million kilowatts of hydropower potential, but the 765kV transmission backbone can dispatch only about 8.5 million kilowatts to load centers. The gap of 7.5 million kilowatts is power that has been generated but cannot reach users. Deploying Bitcoin mining close to the generation sources can capture this electricity before it dissipates during transmission.

On the natural gas side, the Orinoco oil belt, the Maracaibo basin, and the Monagas and Anzoátegui eastern oil fields in Venezuela are estimated to flare associated gas equivalent to roughly 300,000 barrels of oil per day. Modular gas turbines deployed alongside oil fields, combined with Bitcoin mining loads, can convert this into hard-currency income without any electricity grid infrastructure—this is exactly the same as YPF’s model tested at Vaca Muerta.

DoctorMiner, founded in Caracas in 2016, was once one of Venezuela’s most influential Bitcoin mining companies and a pioneer of Latin America’s first Bitcoin mining pool. The company grew from a two-person founding team into a network with over 1,500 miners connected, early proving that in an economy where the local currency was nearly collapsing, Bitcoin mining could generate hard-currency income at near-zero electricity costs. The company’s founder pointed out that Venezuela’s oil, gas, and hydropower resources give it a structural advantage for industrial-scale mining once the regulatory environment allows it. DoctorMiner represents a potential anchor point for Venezuela’s mining ecosystem in the post-licensing era: local operators who understand the grid, the political ecosystem, and business opportunities, and are ready to partner with foreign capital.

The advancement of the regulatory pathway is far beyond what most people realize. OFAC General License GL 48A and 49A have already been issued, authorizing U.S. companies to conduct business in Venezuela’s energy sector. Siemens and General Electric have obtained specific OFAC licenses for grid maintenance work. After Arc Energy acquired IMPSA, it is actively lobbying OFAC to restore the Tocoma hydropower license for the project that has an installed capacity of 2,160MW, costs about $8.9 billion, yet was never completed. The template for private capital to enter Venezuela’s energy sector under OFAC authorization already exists, and Bitcoin miners can leverage the same legal framework.

El Salvador: A “Concept” Pioneer

El Salvador holds a unique position in the history of Bitcoin mining. In September 2021, it became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Through LaGeo, it runs the world’s only government-led geothermal Bitcoin mining project. When President Bukele announced the “Volcano Energy” public-private partnership project with Tether in 2021, it became one of the most widely covered stories in the mining space.

But this is not yet a competitive Bitcoin mining market.

With a population of 6.5 million, the country has only about 2,200MW of installed capacity and no structural electricity surplus. Large industrial electricity prices are around $0.20/kWh—about four times the price paid by Paraguay miners. In terms of grid reliability, each customer experiences an average of 13.7 power outages per year, with an average outage duration of 18.2 hours annually. The “Bitcoin Law” has also partially rolled back: the IMF’s 2024 loan agreement requires El Salvador to switch merchants’ Bitcoin receiving from mandatory to voluntary.

A credible long-term thesis lies in geothermal expansion. LaGeo operates about 204MW across two power stations, Ahuachapán and Berlín. The Chinameca geothermal field is being actively explored with support from the World Bank. Its long-term goal is to expand total geothermal installed capacity to over 400MW. At this scale, the estimated levelized cost of geothermal energy in El Salvador is $0.03–0.06/kWh. It can provide all-weather baseload supply and has no exposure to fuel price risks. If Chinameca achieves commercial development and creates a genuine power surplus, El Salvador would finally have the prerequisites for competitive Bitcoin mining for the first time.

El Salvador pioneered the “volcano mining” narrative. Paraguay built real hashrate. The gap between the two outcomes can be fully measured in megawatts and electricity prices.

Data Comparison

Industrial electricity prices across Latin American countries

Latin American countries’ regulatory attitudes toward Bitcoin mining

Hashrate data comparison across Latin America in Q2 2026

Conclusion

Latin America contributes about 5–6% of the global hashrate, while the United States accounts for 37.4%. The root cause of this significant gap is not insufficient energy endowment, but a misalignment between economic mechanisms and the policy environment.

Paraguay’s rise offers an extremely valuable reference sample. This country, largely ignored by most of the world, still has 21% of its electricity lost to theft and technical losses. Although its population is smaller than many U.S. metropolitan areas, it is the world’s fourth-largest Bitcoin mining jurisdiction. It reached this position because Itaipu’s power surplus has a structural advantage. Its electricity pricing system truly reflects the characteristics of low marginal cost generation. In addition, the regulatory environment is relatively stable and has not created extra friction that erodes profits.

Other regions are not short on energy. Bolivia’s Uyuni plateau solar irradiation rivals Atacama; Argentina’s Patagonia wind belt is world-renowned; Brazil’s hydropower cascade—Itaipu, Belo Monte, Tucuruí—produces clean power exceeding the total installed construction output of most countries; Venezuela’s Caroni basin has some hydropower already built and some on hold, waiting for U.S. capital and OFAC licenses to unlock; and once fully developed, El Salvador’s geothermal resources will become one of the cheapest baseload energy sources in the Western Hemisphere.

What these countries are missing in common—each with a different combination—is the ability to: deliver energy to mining operations at competitive prices, deploy multi-year capital within a sufficiently stable regulatory framework so that it is rational, and operate in a macro environment where USD-denominated operations can run predictably.

The down-cycle is the best diagnostic proof. When the hashrate price (Hashprice) touches historic lows, short-sighted arbitrage behavior quickly collapses, while enduring infrastructure investment chooses to deepen its roots. Paraguay’s retention, Bolivia’s retreat, and Brazil’s expansion together outline the future direction of the Latin American mining market.

Over the next 12–18 months, which markets can cross that line will be the key question. Brazil’s ACL reforms, Argentina’s energy decrees, Venezuela’s OFAC licensing pipeline, and El Salvador’s Chinameca exploration are all active variables. The energy is already there; the work is to align policy and economics with it.