fbpx

Type to search

Kazakhstan Unrest Slashes Bitcoin Mining Operations

Russia sent soldiers into Kazakhstan on Thursday to help put down the countrywide uprising after violence spread across the former Soviet state


Compass Mining, a provider of crypto mining equipment, has announced that two of its key executives have resigned.
A worker adjusts rigs at a cryptocurrency mining farm in China. Compass said it would dispose of its crypto mining facilities in Russia over sanctions related to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. File photo: AFP.

 

The global computing power of the bitcoin network dropped sharply this week as the shutdown of Kazakhstan’s internet during a deadly uprising hit the country’s fast-growing cryptocurrency mining industry.

Kazakhstan became last year the world’s second-largest centre for bitcoin mining after the US, according to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, after China clamped down on crypto activity.

Russia sent soldiers into Kazakhstan on Thursday to help put down the countrywide uprising after violence spread across the tightly controlled former Soviet state.

Police said they had killed dozens of rioters in the main city Almaty, while state television said 13 members of the security forces had died.

The internet was on Wednesday shut down across the country in what monitoring site Netblocks called “a nation-scale internet blackout”.

 

Accessing Bitcoin network

The move would have prevented Kazakhstan-based miners from accessing the bitcoin network.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are created or “mined” by high-powered computers, usually at data centres in different parts of the world, which compete to solve complex mathematical puzzles in an energy-intensive process.

In August last year, the most recent data available, Kazakhstan accounted for 18% of the global “hashrate” – crypto lingo for the amount of computing power being used by computers hooked up to the bitcoin network.

In April, before China’s latest clampdown on bitcoin mining, the figure was just 8%.

Kazakhstan’s bitcoin mining operations are mostly powered by “super-dirty” old coal plants said to generate much worse emissions than operations did in China.

Separately, the French nuclear fuel supplier Orano said on Thursday that its uranium mining operations in Kazakhstan were continuing as they are in an isolated region away from areas hit by unrest.

Orano operates in Kazakhstan through a joint venture with national mining company Kazatomprom, and sourced nearly half of its uranium production from the country in 2020.

 

  • AFP and Reuters, with additional editing by George Russell

 

 

ALSO READ:

 

Kyrgyz Power Official Detained Over Crypto Mining

 

US Returns $154m Stolen by Japanese Bitcoin Thief

 

US SEC Delays Decision to Approve Grayscale Bitcoin ETF

 

 

Tags:

George Russell

George Russell is a freelance writer and editor based in Hong Kong who has lived in Asia since 1996. His work has been published in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Post, Variety, Forbes and the South China Morning Post.