Sources and documents detail how Tether's plan to build two bitcoin mining sites in Uruguay fell apart amid a dispute with state utility UTE over power supply
Uruguay seemed like the perfect place for cryptocurrency giant Tether to launch a bitcoin mining operation.
Context & Ripple Effects
Tether entered 2023 with a stated plan to spend roughly $500M in six months to become one of the world's top bitcoin miners, anchored by its 20% stake in Northern Data (the $500M mining push). Uruguay was the flagship bet: cheap, green power from a single state counterparty, UTE, with no need to negotiate with private generators.
The Reuters reporting closes that arc badly. The two-site plan died in a dispute with UTE over power supply, and by late 2025 Tether-owned Northern Data had sold its mining unit, Peak Mining, for up to $200M to buyers including companies controlled by Tether executives (the Peak Mining sale) — with bitcoin's price slumping over the same period and federal prosecutors probing the company on sanctions and AML grounds (the federal investigation).
First-order effects
- Tether's ambition to rank among the world's top bitcoin miners loses its South American foothold outright: two planned sites are dead, and the company's mining footprint now rests on the divested Peak Mining unit rather than new capacity.
- UTE retains full control of the power Tether never drew, leaving the state utility as the sole arbiter of whether large crypto loads get connected in Uruguay at all.
Second-order effects
- Other miners scouting state-utility markets like Uruguay now price in sovereign-counterparty risk: a single utility can stall or kill a nine-figure buildout after site selection, raising the cost of capital for similar projects across the region.
- With mining exits compounding under regulatory pressure, Tether's capital is rotating toward stablecoin ventures instead — the Georgia government partnership to launch the GELT lari-backed token is the visible destination.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, national grids and their state utilities become the de facto regulators of where industrial-scale mining exists, displacing the old logic that cheap power alone determines siting.
- The broader shift is crypto infrastructure firms retreating from energy-intensive self-mining toward licensed financial products and government partnerships — a structural answer to both the legitimacy gap and falling mining economics.
The trend: Industrial bitcoin mining is migrating from opportunistic cross-border power plays toward politically negotiated, utility-gated arrangements — or out of mining entirely as operators pivot to regulated stablecoin businesses.