African Internet Pioneer Launches Bitcoin Mining Facility

Ghana-based IT solutions firm Ghana Dot Com (GDC) has launched a bitcoin mining facility it claims is the first in Africa.

The announcement is notable given GDC chairman Nii Quaynor’s history as an early Internet pioneer. In 1993, Quaynor launched one of Ghana’s first Internet Service Providers, and he has since served on the board of ICANN and the Internet Governance Forum Advisory Group at the United Nations.

As such, Quaynor sought to draw comparisons between the two technologies in an announcement regarding the launch.

Quaynor said in a statement:

"As one of first African computer [companies], we have an interest in seeing the adoption of computing sciences in Africa. We pioneered Internet development and will similarly promote bitcoin development in Africa."

GDC said that its support of bitcoin is a bid to help drive cryptocurrency adoption in Africa as it believes the digital currency, and its underlying distributed ledger, the blockchain, have the ability to change global finance.

The company did not provide further details on its mining facility, but claimed its farm is now producing "several hundred terahashes per second" of capacity to the bitcoin blockchain.

GDC said it will seek to launch more cryptocurrency products soon, but provided no further details.

Ghana image via Shutterstock