Now responsible for the second-largest contribution to the Bitcoin hash rate, Kazakhstan’s energy grid may be unprepared to handle the addition of many cryptocurrency miners from China and others looking to capitalize on low-cost electricity.
In a Wednesday report from Reuters, government officials in Kazakhstan estimate that unregistered crypto miners in the country could be consuming twice as much power as those registered to avoid paying taxes and other fees. Together, all crypto miners in the country could be using as much as 1.2 gigawatts, or roughly 8% of Kazakhstan's total power generation capacity.