Tether Abandons $120M Uruguay Mining Project Amid Electricity Dispute

Tether's ambitious Bitcoin mining project in Uruguay has come to an end after the company walked away from two facilities that cost approximately $120 million. The decision was made following a prolonged dispute with state utility UTE over how much electricity the sites were entitled to receive.

The disagreement centered around the interpretation of Tether's electricity supply contract, which both parties had signed in 2023. While Tether understood the contracted amount as a minimum allocation that could be scaled up, UTE viewed it as a hard ceiling that couldn't be exceeded.

As operations grew and demanded more power, the dispute became a serious operational problem. The mining sites went days without enough electricity to run on occasion, according to one former contractor.

Tether's local legal entity, Microfin, stopped paying its electricity bills in May 2025, and later notified UTE that it intended to terminate the contracts. A last-ditch effort to save the arrangement fell apart when Tether representatives failed to show up for signing.