- Bitcoin miners begin moving their equipment out of Kazakhstan.
- 30% of the machines have already been relocated.
- This could be another reason for BTC’s drastic slump.
As the unrest in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan heightens, new reports indicate that Bitcoin miners are moving. Presently, the miners have succeeded in moving 30% of their equipment out of Kazakhstan, the country’s industry association alleges.
Aside from the Russia-Ukraine plight being speculated as to the cause for Bitcoin’s continuous fall, another reason for BTC’s price plunge is suggested to be the fact that miners are migrating.
The President of the National Association of Blockchain and Data Center Industry of Kazakhstan Alan Dorjiyev announced the reason behind the move. He states that the move comes following electricity shortages and the imminent tax hikes.
China’s crackdown on miners around May last year gave rise to Kazakhstan becoming the mining hotspot. Not long after, the supposed title came crashing down as the country’s power supply drastically dropped.
To handle the shortages, the government increased electricity imports from Russia, shut down legal mining farms amid winter blackouts. Yet, that didn’t help the situation due to the energy-consuming operation.
Now, it is alleged that the parliament intends to impose on miners a tax of 10 tenges (almost $0.02) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity generated from domestic energy resources. Then, it will also impose 5 tenges per kWh on imported electrical energy.
The question nagging in the minds of everyone is where these miners intend to set their camp. Some suggest that the next hub of cryptocurrency mining could be El Salvador, Dubai, Iceland, and a few other cold regions.