Kazakhstan Authorities cracking down on illegal crypto mining operations


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.

Indrani bose
CBW - External Analyst
INDIA