Authorities in Kazakhstan cracking down on illegal crypto mining operations amid ongoing issues with electricity supply. The closure of these crypto mining farms in cooperation with law enforcement has been announced by the energy ministry. 

According to local departments of the Committee for Atomic and Energy Supervision of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy, they jointly with Members of the country’s law enforcement and other government agencies, have carried out a number of inspections in the country. The motive was to identify illegal coin mining operations. As per Energy officials in Kazakhstan for the last few weeks, they have traced and uncovered 13 illegal data-mining farms in the country. These crypto mining farms were operating and producing digital currencies without proper authorization.  These firms were using a consumption power capacity of 202 megawatts.

Various facilities have been installed all over the country, including in the cities of Nur-Sultan, Almaty, and Shymkent, and the regions of Karaganda, Pavlodar, Turkestan, Akmola, and Kostanai. After earlier in February Kazakhstan President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev gave instruction to the Financial Monitoring Agency that by 15 Match they must account for all coin minting enterprises in the country and verify their tax, customs, technical documents, and report back. The authorities in Karaganda and Pavlodar regions found mining equipment with a total capacity of over 31 MW and 22 MW. Furthermore, a total of 3.28 MW of hardware was unplugged in the Turkistan region, a total of 1.03 MW in the Akmola region, a total of 0.82 MW in the Kostanay region, 1.8 MW in Nur-Sultan, 3.5 MW in Almaty, and 4 MW in Shymkent. The ministry also disclosed that in West Kazakhstan and in Karaganda some have issued “self-restrictions” for a total capacity of 91 MW and 44 MW.

On February 21 the Energy Ministry said in a statement “[Efforts] to identify and disconnect mining farms from the electrical grid will continue, and the relevant government bodies are also conducting investigations into the data-mining farms that have been detected,”.

The Minister of Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace Industry Bagdat Musin declared earlier this year that he would crack down on unlicensed crypto-miners and appealed to the public for support in the crackdown. He said on February 3 “Gray miners are doing a lot of harm to our power grid. The energy costs of illegal mining are estimated to exceed 1 gigawatt,”. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev then called for guidelines to regulate and develop the sector a few days later.

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Indrani bose

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA