thecoinrepublic.com
- Residents of Svaneti, Georgia, have reportedly been forced to take a holy swear not to mine cryptocurrencies in order to address energy issues caused by Bitcoin mining.
- An eternal oath was signed in order to ensure that the region’s power grids would operate at peak efficiency since crypto miners are accused of consuming too much electricity.
Tourism spending drives the economy of Svaneti area in northwest Georgia, which grew every year from 2000 to 2019, according to Macrotrends. However, as a result of the Covid-19 epidemic, tourism declined in 2020 and has only just begun to recover to pre-Covid levels of growth.
To earn a living, hundreds of residents turned to cryptocurrency mining, which has been blamed for significantly disrupting the economy.
According to a video posted by local media station Sputnik Georgia, miners gathered in a church on December 30, 2021, to take a holy oath to St. George promising not to mine cryptocurrencies. Pledges of this type are typically regarded as unbreakable bonds.
Why does Georgia have issues with crypto?
Residents in the Svaneti town of Mestia have started protesting against cryptocurrency mining, and the electric company that supplies them with power, Energo Pro, has threatened to raise electricity bills.
Svaneti is a hilly region of Georgia that now has free power in some areas, making mining more appealing.
This is a condition that is growing more frequently all around the world. To the displeasure of local inhabitants, Bitcoin miners have migrated to nations with inexpensive electricity. In the situations of Kosovo and Kazakhstan, governments have prohibited crypto mining in order to protect the local currency.
Crypto mining is having an effect on the electricity supply
At the end of 2021, the municipality of Mestia published a statement describing the extent to which crypto mining has impacted the local electricity supply. According to the report, “consumption has increased by 237 percent this year in compared to previous years.”
Energy Pro, an energy business, called the massive increase in use “unsustainable.” On January 5, the business told local media that the region was consuming 27 megawatts of electricity, about four times what the infrastructure was meant to handle.
Due to a hazardous winter supply drain, Kosovo in southern Europe recently prohibited crypto mining. On January 10, the Kosovar authorities took 300 mining rigs, forcing mining businesses to sell their rigs or relocate to neighboring nations.
Kazakhstan was the second most active Bitcoin mining country, but it basically shut down miners in the first week of this year due to political protests. A central Asian country’s internet outage resulted in a 13.4 percent decline in hash power throughout the Bitcoin network.