Kosovo bans crypto mining after facing severe energy supply issues

[Donut417]

11 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

Here's the thing, If your energy is state subsidized, then any cryptomining you do, is owned by the government, since you're repackaging their resources. I expect any country that subsidizes energy to either enact cryptomining bans, or to seize equipment and wallets used for selling their state resources without their permission.

 

In the US where most electricity generation is private, that likely won't be a thing, but the the US is largely the exception to the rule. However public utilities are still regulated in the US, and you can bet that any state/cities that has known cryptomining farms is aiming to raise the energy costs because they just see it as another way to profit.

Here in the US a lot of companies use smart meters to see electricity usage. There was actually a movement with people trying to get smart meters banned, the general tin foil hat WiFI is bad crowd. Anyway Im sure most electric companies in the US would tell who's doing a large scale mining operation pretty easy. While Utilities are regulated here, if they kiss the right government officials ass they can get about any changes past a utility commission. The way the government benefits at least at the Federal Level is tax, I know crypto falls under two different taxes but it depends on how long you hold the coins, for example if you have the coins over a year it would be capital gains that you would pay if you sell them. However if the IRS can tax crypto I wouldn't be surprised if state governments also attempt to tax crypto in some way. In the end the power company will find a way to profit and the government will find a way to profit and maybe the miner will profit a little bit themselves. 

[MultiGamerClub]

Mining already sucking scarce electricity from a country that needs it for much better uses.. Good job.

[AnonymousGuy]

Uh maybe price electricity higher where mining isn't profitable?

 

Quote

>where ethnic Serbs do not recognise the state's independence and refuse to pay electricity bills.

 

Nevermind, this country is fucked.  They can't get people to pay electric bills but they think they're going to enforce a crypto ban.  Fucking hell.

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

No. Because everything else isn't repackaging energy as currency. All cryptocoin mining is doing is converting energy into something that can be traded without anything physical being traded unlike batteries.

 

That doesn't even make sense.  It doesn't matter if I buy my electricity from the government or from a private company with government subsidies, it's a resource I am buying and unless the government stipulates you can't use subsidies for commercial power consumption then what ever I produce using that power is mine, not the governments.

[I Just Want Ram Drives]

On 1/5/2022 at 7:07 AM, ki8aras said:

speaking as a european, electricity prices haven't been good for a while now

so as a result of this many miners(including me) have embraced solar energy to alleviate the huge electricity costs that come along with crypto mining

Damn, imagine how much more good that'd do if it just fed the grid, instead of your fiat-but-not-government-fiat money?

[whm1974]

11 minutes ago, I Just Want Ram Drives said:

Damn, imagine how much more good that'd do if it just fed the grid, instead of your fiat-but-not-government-fiat money?

Keep dreaming...

[lostcattears]

Oh Dang with this shortage of energy... They r banning mining! then we will have more supply of GPU and Wafers! I can't wait until more government follows.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, MultiGamerClub said:

Mining already sucking scarce electricity from a country that needs it for much better uses.. Good job.

We should have all seen the writing on the wall when Iran and China started halting or banning legal farms.

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/cryptocurrency/news/iran-bitcoin-mining-ban-power-usage-electricity-shortage-2692287

Quote

 Updated: 6 January 2022 15:32 IST

Mostapha Rajani Mashhadi, the director of Iran Grid Management, made the announcement, aiming to free up power up to 209 megawatts and distribute it among Iranian establishments for the winter, Zycrypto reported.

 

https://www.euronews.com/next/2021/11/20/bitcoin-ban-these-are-the-countries-where-crypto-is-restricted-or-illegal2

Take with a grain of salt if the ban is due to energy consumption or because the country is really an authoritarian regime that doesn't want to lose control of their economic activity. 

 

 

https://fortune.com/2022/01/05/crypto-blackouts-bitcoin-mining-bans-kosovo-iran-kazakhstan-iceland/

Then you have countries being completely destabilized by bitcoin mining.

 

Quote

For months, Kazakh lawmakers have been setting down new rules to discourage mining, including a law that will introduce extra taxes for crypto miners starting in 2022. Experts expect the move will significantly change the incentives for people looking to deploy capital inside Kazakhstan.

“The internet outage comes at the heels of efforts to impose a de facto ban on new mining in the country, so miners will have been well aware of the political risk there,” said Nic Carter, co-founder of Castle Island Ventures.

 

Anyway, the headwinds are largely starting to look in the direction of the end of cryptocurrencies. Some of them may survive, but likely only in countries where the energy production is far greater than the population using it.

[jagdtigger]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

legal farms

Using the term legal in relation to crypto is pretty far fetched, more like grey area at best.....

 

  

2 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Uh maybe price electricity higher where mining isn't profitable?

So punish everyone because a few good for nothing vegetables wanna keep on making money out of nothing? Yeah really sound and very logical decision /s....

Edited January 7, 2022 by jagdtigger

[Moonzy]

2 hours ago, I Just Want Ram Drives said:

Damn, imagine how much more good that'd do if it just fed the grid, instead of your fiat-but-not-government-fiat money?

in my case, if i dont use electric, i dont see a single cent from my solar panels, since all i get is credit that expires in 2 years if i dont use it
furthermore, my electric is tiered, so if i dont use much electric, my solar power will get credited less cents per kWh it generates, making the "ROI" much worse

[AnonymousGuy]

58 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

So punish everyone because a few good for nothing vegetables wanna keep on making money out of nothing? Yeah really sound and very logical decision /s....

Clearly you don't pay an electric bill if you don't know about tiered usage pricing.

 

First 3kW = 6 cents per kwH

Next 7  = 10 cents per kwH

Everything above = 25 cents per kwH.

 

But if the people you're dealing with don't pay their bills with no consequence then why is the utility even bothering to send them?  And seeing this is a third world country they probably have no idea where power is going to monitor everyone stealing it straight off the poles.

[ki8aras]

4 hours ago, I Just Want Ram Drives said:

Damn, imagine how much more good that'd do if it just fed the grid, instead of your fiat-but-not-government-fiat money?

i mean i straight up paid to have them installed so if it powered the grid i would still benefit(also we don't care about crypto, we sell it immediately cuz we're not in it for the long term)

 

oh wait, it wouldn't benefit me because greek internet companies have stupid fees that apply when someone tries to put power back on the grid, incentivising me to spend all the power thats generated

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Moonzy said:

in my case, if i dont use electric, i dont see a single cent from my solar panels, since all i get is credit that expires in 2 years if i dont use it
furthermore, my electric is tiered, so if i dont use much electric, my solar power will get credited less cents per kWh it generates, making the "ROI" much worse

 

50 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

oh wait, it wouldn't benefit me because greek internet companies have stupid fees that apply when someone tries to put power back on the grid, incentivising me to spend all the power thats generated

So in one country you get charged more if you feed in solar, in another country you only get paid something worthwhile if you use more of their power to begin with and here in Australia the feed in tariff is so pissy now solar is only viable if you get batteries and go off grid for more than a decade without having to replace anything.

 

This simply highlights a serious economic issue with solar feeding a grid.

[EL02]

7 hours ago, MultiGamerClub said:

Mining already sucking scarce electricity from a country that needs it for much better uses.. Good job.

I don't get this mindset.

Mining operations are only a small percentage of the reason why this electricity crisis is happening. If I'm paying for electricity, I should be able to use it however I want(obv not illegal things). Leaving the casual miner out of the discussion, people have invested time and money into mining warehouses. Yeah the government can take steps in order to monitor this activity, but I don't find it reasonable to ban it altogether.

[Dracarris]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

So in one country you get charged more if you feed in solar, in another country you only get paid something worthwhile if you use more of their power to begin with and here in Australia the feed in tariff is so pissy now solar is only viable if you get batteries and go off grid for more than a decade without having to replace anything.

The payback policy when feeding in solar is a serious problem in many countries. People really need to be incentivized to do so. For example, there are countries where if you feed in solar you still have to pay the "grid usage fee" which is around 50% or more of the regular ct/kWh consumption price. So as you already said, unless you use the energy yourself there is absolutely no point in generating solar, which is totally and utterly retarded. This needs to be changed for good, especially if we want to rely on decentralized renewables for grid stability when shutting down more and more coal and nuclear power plants.

[MultiGamerClub]

2 minutes ago, EL02 said:

I don't get this mindset.

Mining operations are only a small percentage of the reason why this electricity crisis is happening. If I'm paying for electricity, I should be able to use it however I want(obv not illegal things). Leaving the casual miner out of the discussion, people have invested time and money into mining warehouses. Yeah the government can take steps in order to monitor this activity, but I don't find it reasonable to ban it altogether.

True for countries where electricity doesnt have shit to say but for poorer countries where electricity keeps getting tapped out and dissapearing.. Sure could ban a resource thats just trash anyway and unstable as shit.

[jagdtigger]

6 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Clearly you don't pay an electric bill if you don't know about tiered usage pricing.

Oh im aware, but not naive enough to belive they wouldnt do a full scale price hike. Sticking to your example they would announce that the have to raise the prices and it would look something like this:

First 3kW = 10 cents per kwH

Next 7  = 15 cents per kwH

Everything above = 35 cents per kwH.

[StDragon]

13 hours ago, Kisai said:

Data center's being rented for mining? I hate those too, but at least those aren't going to burn down the neighborhood when left unattended, like grow-ops do. Data centers also pay industrial rates for energy that the utility gets paid for, use-it-or-lose-it.

Funny you should mention that. At the data center I visit, I watched a cart full of Antminers being rolled out of the building and into the back of someone's vehicle. In fact, I knew were that equipment was because it was nice to walk behind it in the hot isle for extended period of time being on the datacenter floor. Kilowatts of heat to say the least. Anyways, I decided to strike up a conversation and was informed he was evicted in violation of the agreement (too much power draw)!

So depending on the datacenter, they don't like crypto miners there too.

[Kisai]

3 minutes ago, StDragon said:

Funny you should mention that. At the data center I visit, I watched a cart full of Antminers being rolled out of the building and into the back of someone's vehicle. In fact, I knew were that equipment was because it was nice to walk behind it in the hot isle for extended period of time being on the datacenter floor. Kilowatts of heat to say the least. Anyways, I decided to strike up a conversation and was informed he was evicted in violation of the agreement!

So depending on the datacenter, they don't like crypto miners there too.

True true.

 

That's why you usually hear about cryptomining companies buying the data center in the first place, or building one from scratch. Because of how volatile process can be, they won't just sideline their mining activities, so they'll likely put their mining gear in an existing data center if they don't have their own.

 

Which is why I find it amusing, that in Texas, of all places, mining is welcome. Did we learn nothing last year?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/04/bitcoin-miners-say-theyre-fixing-texas-electric-grid-ted-cruz-agrees.html

 

I'll just summarize the article and say that the way Texas power generation is setup, that negative loads kick generation supply offline. So some people want to put bitcoin farming in the generation chain so that it can't go negative. I see the logic, but that's the same logic one uses when they don't want to fix a problem, and instead want to solve it with buzzwords and tech when it requires the people in charge to actually listen.

 

 

[StDragon]

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Which is why I find it amusing, that in Texas, of all places, mining is welcome. Did we learn nothing last year?

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/04/bitcoin-miners-say-theyre-fixing-texas-electric-grid-ted-cruz-agrees.html

 

I'll just summarize the article and say that the way Texas power generation is setup, that negative loads kick generation supply offline. So some people want to put bitcoin farming in the generation chain so that it can't go negative. I see the logic, but that's the same logic one uses when they don't want to fix a problem, and instead want to solve it with buzzwords and tech when it requires the people in charge to actually listen.

 

 

Once Elon gets production going with the the Gigafactory in Austin, he'll be able to also create battery banks to store energy on the grid. It will be extremely profitable for him as he can charge when the price is low, then dump back on the grid when price raises. For one, it would help with grid instabilities in curbing brownouts. Secondly it would slam down price spikes that people freak-out over when using Griddy Energy as their provider (don't use them, it's stupid, and people lose their ass in just a few events out of the year).

BTW, Texas as a state produces the most energy from wind out of all others in the Union. Over 33 gigawatts of capacity and growing; specifically offshore. We need more wind and Elon's battery banks. Crypto can be kicked to the curb or thrown on the lowest priority as a useful parasitic load for ERCOT to shed; multiple times a day if needed. 

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, StDragon said:

BTW, Texas as a state produces the most energy from wind out of all others in the Union. Over 33 gigawatts of capacity and growing; specifically offshore. We need more wind and Elon's battery banks. Crypto can be kicked to the curb or thrown on the lowest priority as a useful parasitic load for ERCOT to shed; multiple times a day if needed. 

In the document I posted earlier about Canada energy exports, one surprise in there was BC selling energy to Texas.

https://apps.cer-rec.gc.ca/CommodityStatistics/Statistics.aspx?language=english

This is from the February 2021 time frame

That's a tiny amount, but still more than 10x the amount everyone else was paying in New York. It's actually ridiculous how Quebec gives away energy to New York.

 

BC also buys back energy at half the cost during off-peak to save generation capacity for on-peak. So in a sense, BC's reservoirs acts as as "battery" for the Pacific energy grid. Texas probably doesn't have that option in any meaningful way, so yes the Tesla battery storage might work there.

 

[Roswell]

The fact that crypto is still remotely relevant blows my mind. Fake digital coins that have zero value or practical use without the backing of traditional currency... which it wants to replace (lol).

 

An excellent example of collective stupidity.

[StDragon]

58 minutes ago, Roswell said:

The fact that crypto is still remotely relevant blows my mind. Fake digital coins that have zero value or practical use without the backing of traditional currency... which it wants to replace (lol).

 

An excellent example of collective stupidity.

Crypto is like that tiger cub that's so cute. But as it grows up, it becomes a deadly beast.

 

The Gov will simply tax it (in sovereign currency) via "unrealized gains" so as to not have its own devalued.

 

The claws on that cub have been growing shaper... It won't remain so.

[EL02]

3 hours ago, Roswell said:

Fake digital coins that have zero value or practical use

Nano:

1. Instant transactions
2. Feeless
3. Very low power consumption

Some coins really do have value and practical use.

[williamcll]

In the past weeks only the collaspe of kazakhstani government and subsequent internet cutoff seems to have really pulled down the market.