Svaneti is a hilly region of Georgia where some areas now have free electricity, making mining more appealing.
To deal with electricity problems blamed on Bitcoin mining, residents of Svaneti, Georgia, have reportedly been forced to swear a sacred oath not to mine cryptocurrencies.
According to Macrotrends, the economy of Georgia’s northwest Svaneti area is based on tourism spending, which increased every year from 2000 to 2019. Tourism, on the other hand, plunged in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 epidemic and has only just begun to recover to pre-Covid levels of growth.
Crypto mining for survival
To make ends meet, hundreds of households turned to cryptocurrency mining, which has been blamed for causing chronic power outages.
Miners gathered in a church on Dec. 30, 2021, to swear a holy oath to St. George that they would not mine cryptocurrencies, according to a video posted by local media outlet Sputnik Georgia. Traditionally, such commitments have been regarded as unbreakable bonds.
Residents in the Svaneti hamlet of Mestia have staged protests against crypto mining, and the electric company that supplies them with power, Energo Pro, has threatened to raise electricity bills.
Svaneti is a hilly region of Georgia where some areas now have free electricity, making mining more appealing.
This type of circumstance is growing more widespread all across the world. To the anger of locals, bitcoin miners have migrated to countries with inexpensive electricity. Governments in Kosovo and Kazakhstan have outlawed crypto mining in order to protect the currency.
At the end of 2021, the municipality of Mestia released a statement describing the extent to which crypto mining has impacted the local electricity supply. “In comparison to previous years, consumption has increased by 237 % this year,” it stated.
The massive growth in consumption has been labelled “unsustainable” by energy company Energo Pro. On Jan. 5, the business told local media that the region was consuming 27 megawatts of power, nearly four times the capacity of the infrastructure.
Due to a dangerous winter supply shortage, Kosovo in southern Europe recently prohibited crypto mining. On Jan. 10, the Kosovar authorities seized 300 mining rigs, forcing mining companies to sell their equipment or relocate to neighboring nations.
Kazakhstan was the second most active Bitcoin mining country until basically shutting down miners in the first week of this year due to political unrest. The Bitcoin network saw a 13.4% decline in hash power due to an internet shutdown in the Central Asian country.
