Bitcoin mining mentioned in new Kazakhstan's bill; cleared in the lower house
Bitcoin mining has been the center of recent discussions everywhere, due to the recent block reward halving and its widely discussed implications. Even though mining activities have been seeing a slowdown, there have been new mining projects being announced to disperse the mining concentration, currently situated in China. However, cheap electricity and favorable climatic condition, along with flexible regulations are the key points to support the mining infrastructure.
Unlike major mining countries, Kazakhstan has contributed 6.17% to the total BTC hashrate and followed Russia and the United States that contributed a hashrate of 6.90% and 7.24%, respectively. The country has been emerging as a hotbed for BTC mining host, due to its cheap electricity and that the country considered it as a “purely technological progress.” As per recent updates, the country has formed a new bill that mentions crypto, blockchain, and mining and has sought clearance from the lower house of the Parliament.
According to Alan Dorjiev, a bitcoin miner from Kazakhstan, he claimed that the bill was in the works since 2018 and will finally reach the senate. Dorijev who appeared on Hashr8 podcast added:
“In this bill, mining is a technological process. Doing services for mining is an entrepreneurial activity and in this bill we cover cryptocurrencies as token-backed tokens and unbacked tokens.”
Alan added that these tokens were approved by the parliament and the people can deal with these tokens for trade.
Apart from the bill, the electricity rate was around two or three cents per kWh, and was inclusive of VAT [12%], but excluded the transportation chargest from state grid that cost around 0.8 cents. Thus, these prices were competitive compared to other countries where the charge of electricity was higher. The cheap electricity supply along with favorable mining conditions appeared to grab the interest of many miners looking to cut their expenses.
OhNoCrypto
via https://www.ohnocrypto.com
Namrata Shukla, Khareem Sudlow