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. 

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.

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