The government of Abkhazia cuts power at 15 cryptocurrency mining plants

[ad_2][ad_1]

The Government of the Republic of Abkhazia has cut power to some cryptocurrency mining farms due to electricity problems, the Chernomorenergo RUE state power utility announced in a Facebook post on December 31st.

For the announcement, Chernomorenergo stopped supplying 15 plants with a total capacity of 8,950 kilowatt hours (kWh), which is presumably equivalent to the electricity consumption of 1,800 households. The cuts were made as part of a series of "temporary measures to limit the consumption of electricity by some categories of subscribers". Chernomorenergo also notes that, following the cuts, mine owners showed understanding and collaboration.

Regulators around the world have expressed concern about electricity consumption in the cryptocurrency mining sector. In November, Norway closed electricity subsidies for the mining facilities of Bitcoin (BTC). Lars Haltbrekken, parliamentary representative for the Socialist Left Party (SV), said that "Norway can not continue to provide huge tax incentives for the dirtiest form of cryptocurrency production […] [Bitcoin] it requires a lot of energy and generates large global greenhouse gas emissions ".

In the United States, the Chelan County public utilities district in Washington state proposed a new electricity pricing structure for cryptocurrency miners designed to bring down the cost of increased demand for electricity. The district "is facing (the rate structure) in order to capture costs and protect investment for customers who are already here and have invested heavily in our system".

As reported by Cointelegraph in October, the revenues of the Bitcoin miners for the first six months of 2018 had exceeded the results in 2017, but the same miners have seen few profits, according to the weekly crypt Diar. At that time, BTC miners' premiums and commissions had already reached $ 4.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2018, about $ 1.4 billion more than profits in all of 2017. According to reports, miners still earned 54,000 Bitcoins monthly.

In December, Chinese miners became the largest Bitcoin short sellers both locally and internationally, following an increase in the number of hedging transactions in the current bear market. The serious decline of the cryptocurrency market has caused the new generation miners to start covering their currencies to avoid market risks.

[ad_2]Source link