Rancakmedia.com – The power of the worldwide bitcoin network has plummeted dramatically following Kazakhstan's internet shutdown this week amid a tragic uprising affecting the country's booming cryptocurrency mining business.
As a result of China's crackdown on crypto mining, the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance estimates that Kazakhstan overtook the United States as the world's second largest bitcoin mining center last year.
Following outbreaks of violence across the tightly controlled former Soviet state, Russia sent paratroopers to Kazakhstan on Thursday to help end the uprising.
Police said they had killed a number of rioters in the major city of Almaty, while state media said 13 members of the security forces had been killed.
Monitoring site Netblocks described Wednesday's internet shutdown as a “nationwide internet outage” and said it affected the entire country.
Bitcoin and Litecoin Network
Miners in Kazakhstan may not use the bitcoin network as a result of the change.
Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin are “mined” by supercomputers located around the world, competing to solve complex mathematical puzzles, a process that uses a lot of electricity.
In August last year, the most recent statistics available, Kazakhstan accounted for 18 percent of the worldwide “hashrate” – slang crypto for the amount of computing power used by computers connected to the bitcoin network.
Before China's current crackdown on bitcoin mining, the percentage was only 8%. According to statistics from mining business BTC.com.
Hashrates at leading crypto mining pools, including AntPool and F2Pool, fell 14% as of 1215 GMT on Thursday from their levels late on Tuesday. Neither group immediately responded to Reuters requests for comment.
