PARAGUAY ANALYSTS CLAIM BITCOIN MINING EATS 30% OF THE COUNTRY’S OWN POWER — THE UTILITY SAYS IT’S A TURBINE AND A HALF OF ITAIPU AND CALLS IT A GRID ASSET — CONTRACTS EXPIRE 2027

Two numbers, same country, same dam. Analysts at Paraguay’s Accelerating Bitcoin conference say mining now draws about 30% of the country’s own electricity use — call it a turbine and a half out of Itaipu’s twenty. Paraguay’s utility, ANDE, has told this exact story before with almost the same number, except its point was the opposite: miners can be switched off in seconds, so the load is a grid asset, not a strain, unlike a hospital or a home. Both claims can be true. A number that looks alarming as a share of Paraguay’s own small domestic demand looks small as a share of Itaipu’s total output, most of which leaves the country anyway. What actually settles this is not either side’s framing — it is metered data, and Paraguay’s own billing history is messy: a 2025 audit found only about a third of the megawatts miners were credited with actually appeared on the bills. Trust the meter, not the conference slide, on either side. The number that is not in dispute: every mining contract in the country expires at the end of 2027. Whoever is right about the 30%, that is the date the argument gets settled by contract, not by press release.