Won't Someone Think Of The Crypto-Bros?!? Kosovo Cuts Mining In Face Of Winter Power Crisis

[hatrack]

For bitcoin enthusiasts in Kosovo with a breezy attitude to risk, it has been a good week to strike a deal on computer equipment that can create, or “mine”, the cryptocurrency. From Facebook to Telegram, new posts in the region’s online crypto groups became dominated by dismayed Kosovans attempting to sell off their mining equipment – often at knockdown prices.

“There’s a lot of panic and they’re selling it or trying to move it to neighbouring countries,” said cryptoKapo, a crypto investor and administrator of some of the region’s largest online crypto communities. The frenetic social media action follows an end-of-year announcement by Kosovo’s government of an immediate, albeit temporary, ban on all crypto mining activity as part of emergency measures to ease a crippling energy crisis.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are created or “mined” by high-powered computers that compete to solve complex mathematical puzzles in what is a highly energy-intensive process that rewards people based on the amount of computing power they provide. The incentive to get into the mining game in Kosovo, one of Europe’s poorest countries, is obvious. The cryptocurrency currently trades at more than £31,500 a bitcoin, while Kosovo has the cheapest energy prices in Europe due in part to more than 90% of the domestic energy production coming from burning the country’s rich reserves of lignite, a low-grade coal, and fuel bills being subsidised by the government.

The largest-scale crypto mining is thought to be taking place in the north of the country, where the Serb-majority population refuse to recognise Kosovo as an independent state and have consequently not paid for electricity for more than two decades.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/16/panic-as-kosovo-pulls-the-plug-on-its-energy-guzzling-bitcoin-miners

[keithbvadu2]

1. Texas was able to cut mining much faster. They simply lost power.

Texas was able to cut mining much faster. They simply lost power.

And then one solved his winter problem by going to Cancun.

[Eugene]

2. Texas welcomes you!

The downside: you'll actually have to pay for the electricity you use.

The upside: when power is rationed, industrial customers get preferential treatment.