Kosovo Has Banned Bitcoin Mining

Kosovo has banned Bitcoin mining due to energy problems. Crypto mining is now illegal in Kosovo. Cryptocurrency miners have started to turn to cloud mining.

Kosovo has been on the agenda with energy problems for a while. In the country, which was declared a state of emergency, an intense struggle was entered into this winter to generate or import enough electricity.

In recent times, frequent power cuts have prevented citizens from doing their daily work. Thereupon, about 10 days ago, the Kosovo government was protested by the people in the streets due to the energy crisis in the country. The government, on the other hand, took the first step to solve the energy problem by strictly banning the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies today.

Kosovo Economy Minister Artane Rizvanolli said they are ready to implement the mining ban. He stated that law enforcement officials in the country will detect and prevent areas that do not comply with the ban or use illegal energy.

In December, the Minister of Economy established the Emergency Measures Committee for Energy Supply, which included representatives from the Kosovo Energy Authority. Currently, the mining ban and other measures in cryptocurrencies are taking place in line with the decisions taken by this committee.

Energy Crisis in Kosovo

A 60-day state of emergency was declared in Kosovo due to the energy crisis. A significant portion of Kosovo's electricity is supplied by coal-fired power plants. The country's largest power plant was closed due to technical problems and the country needed electricity imports.

Similar technical problems in neighboring Serbia have affected the country's production capacity and thus electricity prices have increased. On top of all this, the Kosovo government declared a 60-day state of emergency in December 2021 to bring the situation under control.

The second step that followed was the ban on crypto mining, which is considered the most useless energy use. Cryptocurrency mining was started in Kosovo, where electricity is the cheapest, although there is no green energy in Europe. But according to the statistical data, only a small fraction of the global hash rate of Bitcoin, 0.01%, belongs to the country market.

Kosovo follows China, Kazakhstan, and Iran in terms of bans. It brings prohibitions by following similar ways.

Kosovo is following a similar path to other countries to avoid energy problems and increase mining hash rates.

For example, Kazakhstan is doing some work to keep the miners who settled in its country after the Chinese bans under its control. While trying to identify the unregistered miners in the country, upper consumption limits were imposed on their electricity use.

In Iran, the issue of how to behave in the face of this new technology caused the country to spend 2021 with indecision. In line with the latest decision, crypto mining is banned in Iran until March 6 to avoid any energy crisis and power outage.