The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is experiencing an earthquake. Because what very few people should know: Kazakhstan is the second most important country in the world for mining new Bitcoin after the USA. In August 2021, almost a fifth of the world’s Bitcoin computing power came from Kazakhstan. The former number one China, on the other hand, lost its importance massively in the past year because the government is taking restrictive action against Bitcoin miners.
Due to the massive unrest in the country, the Kazakh government temporarily turned off the Internet this week. With dramatic consequences: In large crypto mining groups, the so-called hashrate, a unit of measurement for the computing power used, then fell by 14 percent on Thursday, reports Reuters.
On Friday, the price of the cryptocurrency temporarily fell below $ 41,000, its lowest level in more than three months.
However, experts see the reasons for the crash of the Bitcoin rate elsewhere. Not in Kazakhstan, but above all in US monetary policy. In the world’s largest economy, an increasing departure from loose monetary policy and rising interest rates are expected.
