Paraguay Approves Bill To Regulate Bitcoin Mining and Trading

On Thursday, the Senate of Paraguay passed a bill that seeks to regulate the mining and trading of  cryptocurrencies in the country.

According to a Twitter post by one of the three proponents of the bill,  Senator Fernando Silva Facetti says the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay will sit to deliberate on the bill in 2022.

Paraguay To Decide on Crypto Bill

The bill requires all miners – whether private individuals or business entities – to request for approval to consume industrial electricity, before applying for a license.

Additionally, the bill states that the Industry and Commerce Secretariat willl be overseeing crypto mining within the country, albeit with the help of the country’s Anti-money Laundering Office and National Securities Commission. Meanwhile, the National Electricity Administration will also partake in regulating the activity.

Meanwhile, despite not clearly stating the idea of an exchange, the bill clearly proposes a sort of record keeping of any individual or legalized business entity looking to offer trading or custody services of crypto to others.

Also contained in the bill is the fact that Paraguay consumes only one-third of the energy it produces. Invariably, this means that, if regulated, crypto mining activities would make up for the remaining thousands of megawatts of electricity that Paraguay currently has no use for.

In short, the bill is seeking to take advantage of the surplus energy in the Latin American country, and will be deliberated upon by the Chamber of Deputies in 2022 as earlier mentioned.

Paraguay is no doubt a safe haven for many mining companies due to its low electricity tariff, which is obviously the lowest in the region, charging at only about $0.05 per kilowatt-hour.