Kazakhstan sets nationwide electricity limit for crypto miners
In an attempt to curb power shortages, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy has decided to impose a cap of 100 MW for crypto mining facilities nationwide.
Reasoning the move, authorities released data that disclosed the electricity consumed by crypto miners compared to other sectors. The data revealed that mining facilities on average use 5 MW of electricity each hour. A single mining center consumes 3.6 million kilowatts a month, enough electricity to power 24,000 homes in Kazakhstan.
Taking into account such data, the newly appointed energy minister, Magzum Maratuly Myrzagaliev, has signed a draft that has limited newly licensed facilities to use just 1 MW over two years.
“…the total power for electrical installations of consumers engaged in digital mining activities should not exceed 100 (one hundred) megawatts in the Republic of Kazakhstan,” the document read.
1 MW of electricity is well below the power used by existing mining facilities. As per data, the energy consumed by mining facilities have an estimated load of 693 MW on Kazakhstan’s power distribution network
As China’s crypto ban drove miners out of the country, the majority of them shifted to countries like the US and Kazakhstan. According to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance (CCAF), Kazakhstan currently accounts for 18% of the world’s Bitcoin hashrate.
Second only to the US, Kazakhstan previously accounted for an estimated 4% of the total hashrate.
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OhNoCryptocurrency via https://www.ohnocrypto.com/ @Gauri Bhatia, @Khareem Sudlow