The Kazakhstan government has cut off internet access amid growing protests, and the country’s bitcoin mining operations appear to be partly to blame for the country’s energy crisis.
A comparison of mining pool hashrates from half a day ago – before the general internet shutdown, as many media outlets have reported – and now shows that rates are falling for many mining pools.
The Internet has been down in Kazakhstan for a few hours where Bitcoin hashrate is about 18%.
The impact on the hashrate so far seems to have dropped 12% just in the last few hours since the internet went down. pic.twitter.com/FcTDsJ6R77
—Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) January 5, 2022
The story is remarkable because of that At least 18% of the global bitcoin hashrate in Kazakhstan resides, as estimated by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance last fall. Large pools including F2Pool, AntPool, and ViaBTC saw decreases of 12.8%, 11.6%, and 19.2%, respectively.
A three-day chart of mining pool activity also shows the decline over the past day:
On Wednesday, the Kazakh government decided to disrupt Internet access in the country. This measure follows the escalation of access to mobile messaging platforms and the increase in protests in the country.
⚠️ Certified: # Kazakhstan now in the middle of a national internet chip after a day of mobile Internet disruption and partial restrictions.
The incident is likely to severely limit the coverage of growing anti-government protests.
📰 Description: https://t.co/Op5GwzXKbh pic.twitter.com/pdHJkJFe7v
– NetBlocks (@netblocks) January 5, 2022
Despite this, the impact of the hashrate is far from the dramatic collapse seen last year when China decided to ban the country’s bitcoin mining ecosystem, which is the largest and most technologically advanced. long day.
However, the current crisis in Kazakhstan, which seems far from resolved – Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has promised a hard crackdown on protests after declaring a state of emergency across the country, which is becoming a real problem for Bitcoin mining. .
The tight energy supply in the country has led to restrictions on miners looking for low – cost energy. But efforts to formalize the industry in Kazakhstan took shape with more than 100 government – registered mining companies, but no longer operating.
