Fertile “coin mining” land
According to Reuters, many “coin miners” have chosen Kosovo because this country has the cheapest electricity in Europe. The number of cryptocurrency miners in Kosovo is said to have skyrocketed in the past few years.
An unnamed “miner” revealed to Reuters that he owns 40 GPUs (graphics processing cards) to mine coins, has to pay about 170 euros for electricity each month to operate and earns about 2,400 euros.
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Kosovo issued an emergency order, banning virtual currency mining before the energy crisis |
However, in the last two months of 2021, the country experienced continuous power outages on a nationwide scale. Even at the height of the crisis, the country had to import about 40% of its energy from the international market.
In late December, the government of Kosovo had to declare a state of emergency for 60 days.
Ban “mining” before the energy crisis
In an effort to limit electricity consumption and face the worst energy crisis of the past decade, the Government of Kosovo issued a ban on cryptocurrency mining in early January 2022.
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Artane Rizvanolli, Minister of Economy and Energy of Kosovo, said: “All law enforcement agencies will stop the production of this activity in cooperation with other relevant organizations to identify locations where there are potential sites. “mining” cryptocurrency.
Since the emergency ban took effect, police and customs officers have begun conducting large-scale raids and sweeps, seizing hundreds of Bitcoin miners.
Facing this situation, many “miners” have liquidated all equipment, the rest are looking for a way to move to another country.
“They are selling their devices or trying to move to neighboring countries,” an investor and administrator of some of Kosovo’s largest cryptocurrency mining groups, CryptoKapo, told Cointelegraph. The Guardian.
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