Kazakhstan Power Grid Stressed Due to Increasing Crypto Mining

Kazakhstan's power grid is under strain due to the massive influx of crypto miners. The south Asian country had become the miner's new safe heaven, after the Chinese crypto ban forced them to shift their operations abroad.

In fact Kazakhstan has now become 2nd largest contributor to Bitcoin network global hashrate(21.9%) after United State, as per data from Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI).

Displaced Chinese miners reestablishing their operations in Kazakhstan was earlier hailed by many as game changer for energy rich country, but now it seems it is becoming more of a problem as along with registered mining farms unregistered mining operations are also flourishing. As per estimate of local authorities, unregistered mining is consuming twice as much power than registered mining farms. And this has strained the country's energy grid which is already heavily reliant on old coal based power plants.

As per Kazak Vice Energy Minister Murat Zhurebekov, the action is inevitable as unregistered crypto miners are consuming as much as 1.2 GWt of power which along with 600 MWt consumed by registered miners account for 8% of the country's total power generation capacity.

Government is planning to introduce a new directive that will curb power consumption by mining farms. The national grid operator KEGOC is rationing power provided to the crypto mining farms and a law is in motion that will limit power to newly registered mining farms to 1 megawatt (MW) per farm.