Kosovo pulls plug on energy-guzzling Bitcoin miners

&gt; &quot;There are a lot of people who have invested in crypto mining equipment and it’s not a small investment,&quot; cryptoKapo said. &quot;People have even taken out loans to invest and the impact now is very bad on their lives.&quot;<p>Well, risk evaluation is part of founding a company. Sucks to be them but there is no need to keep having rolling blackouts just because some people didn&#x27;t do their research.

If value of a commodity is predicated on scarcity - eg gold - then isn’t it the case that Bitcoin is actually using <i>energy</i> as the scarce commodity on which its value is based?<p>Unfortunately, production of energy is one of the very things which is driving one of our biggest global problems - global warming.<p>I don’t see how the two can be decoupled.

This is something that even the most die hard BTC fans should be happy about.<p>We can&#x27;t go around claiming BTC is green while mining in countries that use the dirtiest of the dirtiest coal for their energy.

&gt; The largest-scale crypto mining is thought to be taking place in the north of the country, where the Serb-majority population refuse to recognise Kosovo as an independent state and have consequently not paid for electricity for more than two decades.<p>So how exactly are they mining if they aren&#x27;t paying for electricity ? Illegally connected to the grid and&#x2F;or bribed someone from the electric company to turn a blind eye ?

What will happen if more countries ban crypto mining, say the US? Would that leave mining under Russian control? In that case could Bitcoin be embargoed, because they’re “made” in Russia?<p>Personally I don’t see the value in crypto-currencies, but that doesn’t mean it not useful to someone. The crypto community should find a way to address the energy consumption of Bitcoin, before the whole thing is regulated away. Right now it’s pretty hard to defend Bitcoin, based on the environmental impact alone.

Bitcoin mining is a waste of electricity. Energy is not a free resource.<p>&quot;Real&quot; money is essentially free. Only cost of producing real money is in materials needed to print a miniscule amount of it.<p>Vast percentage of money currently in circulation is already virtual - in the form of bits inside computers. Your bank has desks with computers, a server where the actual data is stored and a vault with a mandatory reserve in the form of printed currency.<p>So, only reasons to prefer Bitcoin are if you want to, for some reason, avoid the banking system or you don&#x27;t have cash ready.<p>Either way, Bitcoin is a murky ground to tread on.

Could there be a similar ban or some regulation on crypto mining in western countries?

All this negativity is fueling the current or upcoming dump run, which in turn will fuel the next pump. Which eventually will expand crypto usage and make some rich cryptobros and sisters even richer.<p>Unless some actual systemic and global changes happen.

Fantastic news!

&gt; while Kosovo has the cheapest energy prices in Europe due in part to more than 90% of the domestic energy production coming from burning the country’s rich reserves of lignite, a low-grade coal, and fuel bills being subsidised by the government.<p>&gt; The largest-scale crypto mining is thought to be taking place in the north of the country, where the Serb-majority population refuse to recognise Kosovo as an independent state and have consequently not paid for electricity for more than two decades.<p>&gt; global bitcoin mining consumes 125.96 terawatt hours a year of electricity, putting its consumption above Norway (122.2 TWh), Argentina (121 TWh), the Netherlands (108.8 TWh) and the United Arab Emirates (113.20 TWh).<p>The absurdity of the bitcoin mining in the middle of the climate crisis is mind boggling.