BIT Mining acquired 51 trillion watts of power facilities and nearly 18,000 bitcoin mining machines in Ethiopia in a $14 million deal. Because electricity costs in Ethiopia are about 70% lower than in the United States, the company was able to transfer older mining machines that were phased out in the United States to local use, thus extending the life of mining machines by about two years. Currently, Ethiopia contributes 1.5% of the Bitcoin network's hashrate, the same as Norway. BIT Mining chose to buy existing facilities rather than build new ones to reduce latent risk.