Kazakhstan government announced, on Wednesday, its resignation in the face of unprecedented political turmoil in the country, which led to the shutdown of the Internet and a decrease in the bitcoin mining hash rate.< /p>
Kazakhstan is the second largest country in the world when it comes to Bitcoin (BTC) mining margin rate.
The sharp rise in fuel prices in Kazakhstan triggered huge popular unrest that led to the resignation of the cabinet, but not before Kazakhstan's state-owned Telecom shuts down the country's internet , causing network activity to drop to 2% of daily heights.
The move dealt a severe blow to the Bitcoin mining activity in the country. According to data compiled by WeCharts.com, the Bitcoin network’s overall hash rate decreased by 13.4% in the hours following the shutdown, from about 205,000 petahashes per second (PH/s) to 17,7330 petahashes per second, with the country accounting for 18% of the network’s hash activity. Bitcoin.
Just days ago, the Kazakh government removed price caps for LPG used as motor fuel to keep pace with market conditions, doubling its price overnight, which sparked violent protests.
The Cointelegraph reported that so far there is still no internet access in Kazakhstan. And if the outage is extended, the consequences could be dire. With internet services aside, Kazakhstan's Industry and Data Center Association expects the country to generate $1.5 billion from legal crypto-mining (and another $1.5 billion from illicit activities) over the five years. coming.
The country's low energy prices have attracted both domestic and foreign entities to set up bitcoin mining projects. According to international oil prices, the cost of electricity in Kazakhstan is on average just $0.055 per kilowatt-hour for companies, a fraction of the $0.12 per kilowatt-hour paid by US companies.
