Now responsible for the second-largest contribution to the Bitcoin hash charge per unit, Republic of kazakhstan's free energy grid may exist 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 exist consuming twice as much power every bit those registered to avert paying taxes and other fees. Together, all crypto miners in the state could be using as much equally 1.2 gigawatts, or roughly viii% of Kazakhstan's full power generation chapters.

According to Murat Zhurebekov, Republic of kazakhstan's vice minister of energy, addressing the potential strain on the nation'southward power grid "cannot be delayed whatsoever longer." He said officials planned to issue a directive that would limit the power consumption of unregistered miners merely did non specify how exactly they could exist located.

Related: Kazakhstan Senate approves legislation regulating crypto service providers

With the exodus of crypto miners following a government crackdown in China, both Kazakhstan and the The states currently stand as countries responsible for the largest contributions to the Bitcoin (BTC) hashing power. Major mining pools, including BTC.com and firms like Canaan, have gear up shop across the edge.

In June, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed legislation imposing additional taxes on the energy used by crypto miners legally operating in Republic of kazakhstan. The law would reportedly introduce an boosted $0.00233 fee per kilowatt-hour, scheduled to have event starting in January 2022.

According to information from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Kazakhstan generated more than 18% of the average monthly hash rate share for the BTC network as of July, with the U.Due south. contributing more than than 35%. Cointelegraph reported in October that some estimates put cryptocurrency mining revenue in Kazakhstan at $1.5 billion over the next five years.