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- Kazakhstan in talks on $700 mln in cryptocurrency mining projects
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They calculate that in one year the machines behind the cryptocurrency require more power than the Netherlands, a country with over 17 million inhabitants. Bitcoin supporters say this is OK since it is creating an entirely new financial system free of government interference.
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Mining gold and printing money too cost a lot to produce, transport and keep safe. Meanwhile, today's financial system with its digital platforms and offices uses lots of energy too. Undisputed numbers are hard to come by because of the complex nature of the calculations. Back at the start of , Bitcoin was using 6.
In October , that was up to 67 terawatt-hours. Now a few months later, it has nearly doubled to terawatt-hours, the Cambridge researchers found, enough to run their entire university for nearly years. By these same calculations, if Bitcoin were a country, only 30 other countries would use more electricity. Dutch economist Alex de Vries is a bit more conservative and thinks Bitcoin uses 77 terawatt-hours of power a year. He has also been following the situation for years and publishes his research on Digiconomist's Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index. Today all data centers globally — the ones that run Big Tech, the cloud, the internet and the current financial system — need around terawatt-hours of electricity a year, according to de Vries.
By comparison, one Bitcoin transaction had the same energy footprint as 80, Visa transactions in Now a single Bitcoin transaction uses the same electricity to run , Visa transactions, according to numbers on Digiconomist, a website "dedicated to exposing the unintended consequences of digital trends. Bitcoin is a virtual cryptocurrency. Basically, that means it is run by a massive peer-to-peer computer network.
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To keep track of everything and to keep the network safe, it uses a ledger system called blockchain. This records all transactions and everyone in the network gets a copy and each copy is linked to each other.
Kazakhstan in talks on $700 mln in cryptocurrency mining projects
Since everything is interconnected the hope is that tampering with the system is impossible. Anyone can become a part of the network; they just need to have a high-powered purpose-built computer, the more powerful the better. These computers solve increasingly difficult math problems to keep it all going. To avoid overheating, the busy machines must be kept cool.

The people running these computers, often called miners, don't get paid per se, but have the chance of being rewarded with Bitcoin. The more computing power they have, the higher their chances of getting some. When the price of Bitcoin goes up, it makes investing in more technology attractive.
It's an upward spiral as more computers are added. Since transaction fees also go to the miners, this also drives miner earnings and ultimately energy consumption. Critics see this as a big problem. Many countries have unstable power grids and some cannot handle the increased needs.
In January, the Iranian government blamed Bitcoin mining for power outages in the country. On top of that, there is the giant CO2 footprint of all that electricity production. Though Bitcoin's environmental damage is so far only a tiny fraction of what cars and industry produce, these ecological concerns have pushed many miners away from coal power to places with cheaper hydroelectric power. And despite most concerns, the cryptocurrency still has a big fan base, most famous among them Tesla's Elon Musk.
Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency on the block though. Some use a similar mining technique to Bitcoin. Others use alternatives in which the block creation process depends on wealth rather than computational power. Last month, the electric carmaker registered an office in Bengaluru, which is a hub for global technology companies.
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However, positive developments were preceded by regulatory turbulence, and at one point, its central bank went as far as to suggest a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies. In early , the chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, Daniyar Akishev, declared that his agency was considering outlawing all cryptocurrencies.
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Things started to look more concrete and positive for local crypto miners in A recent bill, which was approved by the Kazakh Senate and signed into law by Nazarbayev earlier in June, essentially legalizes mining, saying that people involved in digital mining are obliged to inform the authorities about their activities. It also stresses that miners are the legal owners of the digital assets they produce.
Bitcoin (BTC) and Kazakhstani Tenge (KZT) Currency Exchange Rate Conversion Calculator
But nobody still knows how it will be in practice. Other than that no regulations. Therefore, the main attraction for miners is not the regulatory framework, which still remains ambiguous despite some positive developments, but rather the abnormally cheap electricity rates. The price of electricity has always been one of the main factors when it comes to cryptocurrency mining, but it has become even more important after the bitcoin halving took place back in May.
The halved reward prompted miners to either sell their equipment or relocate to regions with cheaper electricity such as Kazakhstan, Russia, the Middle East and South America. The climate is cool, and is in close proximity to China. Bekbauov said that most local mining operations are located in regions with high electricity generation — such as Ekibastuz, Karagandy, Pavlodar and Taraz — while the country has an overall good climate for crypto mining throughout most of the year.