By Nathan Ferguson
For more than a year, Kazakhstan – the oil-rich country in Central Asia – has upheld its rank as the 3rd-largest region contributing to the mining of Bitcoin (BTC) following outcompeting Russia formerly in February previous year. As of January this year, a contribution of up to 13.22% was made by Kazakhstan to the cumulative hash rate of Bitcoin and secured a place after the prominent countries of the United States (with 37.84%) as well as China (with 21.11%).
Kazakhstan Overtakes Russia in Bitcoin Mining
According to the analogous timelines, the data shared by Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance anticipated that the absolute per-month contribution of Kazakhstan in hash rate was almost 24.8 Eh/s. In the meantime, China and the US subsidized 39.6 Eh/s and 71 Eh/s respectively.
The European Union’s co-funded International Energy Agency (IEA) pointed out the huge reliance of the country on non-renewable power, such as natural gas (17%), coal (28%), and oil (more than 28%) until 2020. As per the study, the majority of coal is being utilized for heat and electricity generation, whereas the final customers (specifically in transportation by road) utilize a major amount of oil.
Nonetheless, the well-known 3 nations making efforts to heighten the BTC hash rate keep on consuming a large proportion specified for the rest of the players including Iran, Germany, and Malaysia. Kazakhstan had been among those who initially provided shelter to the deserted crypto miners from China when the authorities enforced an outright prohibition over the trading and mining of BTC and other crypto assets.
After that, in September this year, China restarted the activities related to mining, nevertheless, the temporary mining prohibition took away the position of the country as the largest center for Bitcoin mining, putting the United States at that place while that rank has been maintained by it ever since.
President of Kazakhstan Intends Delving into Digital Technology
Reports from Kazakhstan’s locals pointed toward the ambition of the country to give legal status to a mechanism that would allow the conversion of crypto to fiat currency. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the President of Kazakhstan, expressed his strategy to turn Kazakhstan into a frontrunner in the sector of the crypto ecosystem, digital technology, as well as regulated mining. He was confident to move ahead in this field while keeping security in mind.