Kazakhstan recently became the second-largest center for cryptocurrency mining, surpassing even the United States. Unfortunately, the latest events in the country led to an internet blackout. In return, this affected the mining operations and caused the Bitcoin price to drop.
Computing Power of Bitcoin Network Drops Sharply
The global computing power of the Bitcoin network dropped suddenly, following the internet shutdown in Kazakhstan this week, after the protests against the latest fuel price. The internet was shut down on Wednesday across the country in the event called “a nation-scale internet blackout.”
This move has likely prevented Kazakhstan miners in their endeavors to keep the Bitcoin blockchain up and running.
In August last year, Kazakhstan accounted for a total of 18% of the global hashrate used for Bitcoin mining. However, at the moment, the hashrate at the two biggest crypto mining pools, Antpool and F2pool, is down by 14%, likely because of the lack of Kazakhstan miners.
Still, the drop in hashrate might not be the only reason for the drop in Bitcoin price. The leading cryptocurrency on the market dropped below $43,000 on last Thursday, testing the multi-month lows.
What’s more, the investors became wary as the US Federal Reserve considered more aggressive policy action and regulations.
On the other hand, the Kazakhstan government stated it plans to discover and pursue so-called “grey” mining operations, which may consume up to 1.2 gigawatts of power. Together with “white” miners, the energy expenditure reaches 8% of the total capacity.