Kazakh Ministry Stopped Illegal Crypto Mining Operations: Report

The Kazakh Ministry of Energy announced that it terminated 12 crypto mining operations and stopped them by disconnecting the farms from the electrical networks as we can see further in today’s latest cryptocurrency news.

The Government’s efforts to identify and to bring down illegal crypto mining operations will continue according to the Kazakh ministry. They announced the discovery of 13 illegal crypto mining operations and the government executed the shutdown as a part of the efforts to regulate the BTC mining sector that grew popular in the past few years.

According to the official statement, the miners were using quite a lot of energy with a total power consumption of 202 megawatts. As per the reports of the Kazakhstan government, the efforts to identify and disconnect the mining farms from the electrical networks will continue. After the illegal mining operations were discovered, the authorized bodies will continue to take investigatory actions. As the planet’s second-biggest BTC producer after China’s crypto crackdown, the power consumption in Kazakhstan surged and it became the home for over 18% of the world’s BTC hash rate back in 2021 after The United States alone. In April, before China’s mining crackdown, the figure was only 8%.

In June 2021, the president of Kazakhstan approved the creation of the new tax category for BTC mining that was motivated by China’s anti-BTC attitude and in 2021 because of the Chinese authority’s hostility, the BTC mining businesses in China relocated to Kazakhstan especially popular companies like Canaan and BTC.com. Although the mining industry was concentrated in the country for a while, it looks set to lose the hash rate share because of various reasons as per the several sector executives. This will most likely cause Kazakhstan to depart from the top three BTC mining countries in the index update which is expected next month.

The Kazakh president even ordered an investigation of crypto mining with Kazakhstan’s first Vice Minister of Finance Marat Sultangaziyev proposing the power price hikes for the crypto miners. As per the reports, although President Tokayev is not against mining and the miners have to obtain licenses and pay electricity bills as well as pay taxes.