Business & Economy

Kazakhstan becomes world’s second largest crypto miner after Chinese ban

Nur-Sultan, Dec 10 (EFE).- Kazakhstan has gained ground in cryptocurrency mining to become the second largest producer in the world, after China, which was the largest, banned the activity, forcing mining companies into exile.

“This is due to the actions of the Chinese government, which banned cryptocurrency mining and markets. This led to a large number of mining farms moving from China to Kazakhstan,” Sapar Akhmetov, a representative of the Association of Blockchain Technologies in the Central Asian nation, told Efe.

Cambridge University’s Center for Alternative Finance estimates that the United States currently mines 35.4 percent of cryptocurrencies globally, followed by Kazakhstan, which produced 18.1 percent in August, ahead of Russia with 11.2 percent.

The increase is significant considering that Kazakhstan mined only 4.6 percent globally in August 2020.

Chinese IT company Canaan reported on its Twitter account the shipment of more than 2,000 Avanol Miners to Kazakhstan, calling it “an exciting milestone that is shaping the future of the crypto industry.”

The company expects to increase its production capacity from 32,000 terahash per second (TH/s, the measure of a cryptocurrency network’s processing power) to 850,000 TH/s “in the near future” thanks to opportunities offered by Kazakhstan.

ALMOST TRIPLED IN A YEAR

Akhmetov said the large exodus of Chinese companies added to those already existing in Kazakhstan, in which “the number of mining companies in the country practically tripled.”

Kazakhstan is attractive to miners because it has a large amount of unoccupied land on which new farms can be installed and inexpensive electricity.

Around 70 percent of electricity generation in the Central Asian nation uses coal as a raw material, which is abundant and cheap.

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