Kazakhstan No Longer A Mining Haven
After China’s crypto bans, Kazakhstan was among the top countries that Chinese crypto miners fled towards. By August 2021, just two months after China’s bans, Kazakhstan was hosting one-fifth of the worlds bitcoin hashrate. For a while, it seemed like Kazakhstan was going to easily beat the U.S. in global hashrates, but that quickly changed after the country started experiencing more and more energy related issues.
In January 2022, public protests erupted against the soaring energy prices in some of Kazakhstans largest cities. This lead to the government cracking down on illegal crypto miners in the country, limiting electricity to miners, and even government controlled internet blackouts in certain areas. Kazakhstan has been trying to eliminate any mining operations that are not properly registered and licenesed.
On January 21, the national grid operator cut off power to all crypto mines temporarily until the end of the month to try to further combat the continuing energy issues.
By early Feburary, the president of Kazakhstan was already calling for a higher tax on crypto mining, as well as a clear proposal for regulating crypto mining. They are also looking to remedy the fact that most crypto miners end up paying much lower electric rates than domestic consumers. Kazakhstan’s Minister for national Economy, Alibek Kuantyrov, presented plans to raise taxes ten-fold for crypto miners, from 1 tenge per kilowatt-hour, to 10 tenge/kWh.
