Kazakhstan has maintained its third-place ranking in Bitcoin (BTC) mining for more than a year after surpassing Russia in February 2021.
As of January 2022, Kazakhstan provided 13.22% of the overall Bitcoin hash rate, placing third behind the two original pioneers, China (21.11%) and the United States (37.84%). Cambridge Community for Elective Money information calculated Kazakhstan’s absolute hash rate commitment (month-to-month average) to be 24.8 exahashes per second (Eh/s) based on comparison timetables. The US and China each contributed 71 and 39.6 Eh/s between those two points.
The Global Energy Office (IEA), which is co-funded by the European Association, emphasized Kazakhstan’s strong reliance on non-environmentally friendly power sources, such as oil (more than half), coal (28%), and petroleum gas (17%), until 2020. According to the conclusions, “most oil is utilized by ultimate consumers, primarily in road transport, while most coal is used for electricity and heat generating.”
Due to the interim mining prohibition, the United States overtook China as the top Bitcoin mining hub when operations in China resumed in September 2022. However, other countries like Malaysia, Germany, and Iran continue to lose market share to the top three countries that contribute to the Bitcoin hash rate.
Kazakhstan was one of the first nations to take in the displaced Chinese miners when the Chinese government issued a comprehensive ban on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining and trading.
Ding claimed that the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) officially barred cryptocurrency transactions last year, but the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court rejected his argument on August 31 and ruled that the defendant owed Zhai the balance of Litecoin.
The most recent news item offers additional proof that bitcoin has not been totally banned in China since the government announced a coordinated crackdown on it in September 2021. As previously said, China reclaimed its ranking as the second-largest supplier of Bitcoin hash rates as of January 2022.
Kazakhstan, according to local media, intends to legalize a system for exchanging cryptocurrencies for cash. In a speech at the international conference Digital Bridge 2022, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev outlined Kazakhstan’s goal of becoming a leader in the field of digital technology, the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and regulated mining.
“We are ready to go further. If this financial instrument shows its further relevance and security, it will certainly receive full legal recognition,” Tokayev said.
