Kosovo Halts Bitcoin Mining
Kosovo is not a wealthy country, considered one of the poorest in Europe, based on mining and energy production, giving it one of the lowest electricity prices/household globally, said to be close to that of Kyrgyzstan at $0.010/KWh. Because of that low energy cost, bitcoin miners forced to leave China after government bans over energy consumption, migrated to Kosovo to take advantage of such low energy prices to mine cryptocurrencies. Unfortunately bitcoin miners are on the move again, as the country issued a ban earlier this month halting all bitcoin mining for 60 days, due to power plant closures (Kosovo has two) and the high cost of importing energy.
According to the University of Cambridge, the amount of power required to generate 1 bitcoin is 150,000 KWh, or roughly the power requirements of 170 US households per month, and spread out across the globe, the power needed to generate bitcoin is 118.8 TWh/year, more than the total energy consumption of Argentina, so bitcoin miners tend to be focused on locations with cheap energy. However, with coal production issues facing a number of countries, including China, and COVID-19 limiting available staff, even those countries that might have invited bitcoin miners before the pandemic, are now limiting or outright banning energy use for bitcoin mining. Where will bitcoin miners go next?
Here’s where electricity is cheap, as of 6/2021:
According to the University of Cambridge, the amount of power required to generate 1 bitcoin is 150,000 KWh, or roughly the power requirements of 170 US households per month, and spread out across the globe, the power needed to generate bitcoin is 118.8 TWh/year, more than the total energy consumption of Argentina, so bitcoin miners tend to be focused on locations with cheap energy. However, with coal production issues facing a number of countries, including China, and COVID-19 limiting available staff, even those countries that might have invited bitcoin miners before the pandemic, are now limiting or outright banning energy use for bitcoin mining. Where will bitcoin miners go next?
Here’s where electricity is cheap, as of 6/2021:
RSS Feed