cryptocurrency: How China’s ban on crypto may have led to power shortages in this country – Times of India

Kazakhstan seems to have encountered a new peril of sorts, with the nation seeing a power outage in three power plants in October, leading to the decision of electricity rationing for 50 registered miners by KEGOC, the country’s electrical grid operator, as per a report by The Financial Times.
As per the report, China’s clampdown on cryptocurrency may be partly to blame for the power issues in Kazakhstan. This is due to the fact that a lot of crypto miners have moved to Kazakhstan, the cheap electricity and China’s tough stance on the subject proving to be the catalysts. As a result, plenty of unregistered crypto miners have been reportedly generating cryptocurrencies illegally from their homes and factories, putting a drain on the power grid.
According to the report, the demand for electricity in the nation has jumped by eight per cent this year when it usually increases by one or two per cent, with six regions in the country facing blackouts.
For help, Kazakhstan has gone to a Russian energy company to support the power grid. The country also plans to charge registered miners 1 tenge (about $0.0023) for every kilowatt-hour from 2022. While there have been claims that Kazakhstan is trying to shove the issues with its electrical grids in the background by bringing up the threat cryptocurrency mining has wrought, there is no confirmation about it with the power outages being the only confirmed happening.