Kazakhstan’s new Digital Development Minister, Bagdat Mussin, has reportedly asserted that the country is already in talks to attract a significant investment worth over $700 million to expand the cryptocurrency mining sector in the Central Asian nation.
The plans for attracting 300 billion tenges ($715 million) of investments in the cryptocurrency mining field were initially revealed in a Senate hearing in mid-June.
The former Minister of Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace Industry Askar Zhumagaliyev explained that the government concluded that cryptocurrency mining is a “part of our everyday lives,” after studying other nations such as the US, and South Korea,
At the time, Kazakhstan already had 14 cryptocurrency mining farms, which had attracted about $200 million of investments in a few years. Consequently, he urged the country to double-down on its mining endeavors.
Earlier today, Reuters reported that the recently appointed new Minister Bagdat Mussin is already “in talks” to increase the massive investment to over $700 million. He said that “today we have preliminary agreements on attracting investments worth 300 billion tenges,” and revealed that the country is currently constructing four more mining farms.
In an attempt to further boost the profits from cryptocurrency mining within the nation’s borders, the Central Asian country also introduced plans to impose a flat 15% tax on the sector.
Data provided from the Cambridge University’s BTC mining tracking tool,The Bitcoin Mining Map, indicates that Kazakhstan is already responsible for a substantial portion of Bitcoin’s global hash rate.
The country is currently fourth on the list with over 6% of the hash rate, trailing only to the unchallenged leader China (65%), the United States (7.2%), and Russia (6.9%).
Should the notable investment of $700 million in cryptocurrency mining succeed over the next three years, Kazakhstan may indeed head towards a spot in the top 3.
Moreover, another report from earlier this year claimed that the growing electricity bills in China are driving miners to seek other destinations. Apart from the US, Kazakhstan, which shares a border to the west with China, had also benefited. Adding the much cheaper electricity in the Central Asian country, the hash rate emanating from within Kazakhstan has skyrocketed by 334% in a year.
The article was first published on Sep 2, 2020.
