The Government of the Republic of Abkhazia disconnected power to 15 cryptocurrency mining farms in a bid to limit the consumption of electricity amid concerns of shortage. The power was cut from the national grid by Abkhazia's state electric utility Chernomorenergo RUE.
Chernomorenergo announced the news in a Facebook post. A total of 15 facilities were disconnected with a total capacity of 8950 kilowatt-hours or kWh. The owners of the 15 facilities have shown understanding and participation, the utility stated.
The action followed a resolution passed by the Government of Abkhazia on December 31 to limit the consumption of electricity by certain categories of subscribers as a temporary measure.
The disconnected capacity is equivalent to the consumption of 1,800 households or equal to the consumption of the Sukhumi district, which is one of the districts of Abkhazia, Georgia's breakaway republic. The city of Sukhumi is the capital of the Republic of Abkhazia.
There have been rising concerns across the globe on the high electricity consumption by cryptocurrency mining facilities. Some countries like Norway have ended electricity subsidy to Bitcoin (BTC) mining facilities recently. Miners paying retail electricity prices have gone unprofitable.
The Chelan County Public Utility District in north-central Washington has also proposed a new higher electricity pricing structure, Schedule 36, for the mining activity, which generally takes enormous power.
Smaller miners, who usually pay retail electricity prices, are hit by a combination of higher electricity costs, lower Bitcoin price, and higher hash rate needed to mine the cryptocurrency. This has led to only large companies sticking to cryptocurrency mining.
Meanwhile, the electricity requirements of Bitcoin have created considerable difficulties. There have been extensive online discussions, while its environmental impacts are less discussed. A research says that cryptocurrency mining could produce enough emissions to raise global temperatures by 2°C within 15 years.
The rising mining costs have also led to a rise of a disturbing process called crypto-jacking, which is the trend of hackers placing crypto-mining malware on devices, networks, and websites to mine for cryptocurrencies. It steals machine resources to mine crypto coins without the victims consent.
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