Kazakhstan Could Lose BTC Hash Rate Leadership Soon: Report

Kazakhstan could lose its BTC hash rate leadership soon as a few Chinese crypto mining giants such as Bit Mining scraped some of their expansion plans so let’s find out more in today’s latest cryptocurrency news.

Kazakhstan is one of the world’s top BTC mining locations but now, the country could lose its BTC hash rate leadership with the next hash rate distribution update according to industry experts. According to Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, Kazakhstan is home to over 18% of the world’s BTC hash rate following only the United States. The country’s BTC mining power increase was mainly driven by the huge Chinese miners’ exodus that was triggered by the Chinese crypto sector crackdown. Before falling to zero, China’s BTC hash rate power accounted for 75% back in 2019.

Despite many Chinese BTC mining companies like BTC.com and Canaan, moving operations to the country in 2021, Kazakhstan could lose its hash rate share because of many reasons according to a few industry executives. This would result in Kazakhstan dropping out from the top three BTC mining countries in the next update that is expected to be released in March. BTC mining will drop in the country due to the unsustainable power subsidies as expected by Philip Ng, the vice president of corporate development at the data center company Soluna Computing:

“We expect that some mining will persist in Kazakhstan but do not anticipate that it will be more than 10 to 15% of global hash rate in the future. The reason is that the power subsidies in Kazakhstan are unsustainable,”

Ng cited January reports that authorities In the region were considering removing power subsidies to stabilize the finances in the country. Another reason for Kazakhstan to lose its BTC mining leadership is the country’s reliance on the gas industry according to Origin Protocol co-founder Josh Fraser who cited the ongoing current tensions and their impact on oil and gas prices:

“Countries that rely heavily on those energy sources for crypto mining could see a drop in hash rates due to increased prices or state intervention. It would expect the United States, Canada, and Germany to somewhat increase its share of global hash rates due to the high availability of renewable energy and very high recent growth in hash rates. I would expect Russia, Kazakhstan, and Iran to drop a bit.”

Kazakhstan experienced a huge hash rate instability due to the political unrest with the country’s presiding cabinet resigning and the government closing down the internet for a few days.