In the dark, but with "crypt"

In Abkhazia, an energy crisis happened after the inhabitants were carried away by the cryptocurrency mining

On December 1, 2020, the Bitcoin cryptocurrency course updated the historical maximum and came close to the mark of $ 20 thousand for one “cue ball”. True, soon the price of it fell sharply by more than 9 percent, and cryptocurrency began to bargain at 18.5 thousand dollars. Over the past three years, the Bitcoin exchange rate fell (twice - below the level of 4 thousand dollars), then began to grow actively. According to the forecasts of one of the founders of the Gemini crypto -tank Tyler Winklvoss (one of the brothers who accused Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg of theft of their ideas of the social network), the price of it can increase up to $ 500 thousand. He is sure that cryptocurrency will become stronger than such a traditional asset as gold.

Vera, by virtue of Bitcoin, caused a real “cryptocurrency fever” - people around the world began to “minute” cryptocurrency around the world, that is, to extract this valuable electronic resource using special equipment. But mining is a very energy -intensive process. As a result, there were so many miners in Little Abkhazia that the republic was faced with a real energy crisis.

Since November 15, in the cities of Abkhazia, a fan shutdown of electricity has been introduced - within a few hours at different times of the day, residents of urban regions are sitting without light. Sometimes electricity is not included at all, so residents sit without light for a day. Everyone reacts in their own way: someone is trying to adapt and get used to getting up until dawn in order to have time to cook breakfast and warm the water, and someone persistently calls out different services and departments in the hope that in this way the problem will solve faster. In the Sukhumsky control of electric networks, one of these calls answered that "they could not turn on the light, since the network simply does not pull, because there is a crypto farm near the former leatherette."

The girl who called the power grid was determined. She posted on social networks a post with a description of the situation. As a result, people began to write her addresses and names of the owners of mining farms. With these data, the girl turned to the police, where she was heard and took measures-on November 24, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the State Security Service and Chernomorenergo de-energized one of the crypto farms located in the building of the Sukhumi Physics and Technical Institute.

A mining farm is a set of powerful computer equipment, which allows you to produce the necessary calculation cryptocurrencies necessary for the extraction of the desired speed. Such a farm during work consumes extremely a lot of electricity.

Almost two years ago, the authorities of Abkhazia issued a decree that temporarily prohibiting cryptocurrency mining, explaining that the process requires such an amount of electricity that is simply not in Abkhazia.

“The priority should be the power supply of the population, social and production facilities,” the authorities said.
By January 2019, Chernomorenergo announced that 15 mining farms were disconnected from the power supply system.

It was reported that they “burned” the volume of electricity, equivalent needs for the energy supply of the entire Sukhumsky district. The additional reason for the “hunting” of the authorities for mining farms is also that this activity is not regulated by law, that is, it does not bring any influx of funds to the republic’s budget.

But the “farmers-mainers” were not to stop prohibitions. According to the director of the Chernomorenergo operational and technological department Ruslan Kvaria, "the decision prohibited the equipment to connect the equipment to the Chernomorenergo networks, but did not forbid it to import him to the territory of Abkhazia." As a result, the company had problems with uncontrolled connection of illegal capacities.
However, as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economics of Abkhazia Christina Ozgan hinted, not a single miner could connect to the network without the knowledge of power engineers.

Only according to official figures of the State Customs Committee of Abkhazia, for two years, the prohibition on the activities of miners in the republic was imported special equipment worth more than 70 million rubles. And unofficial data indicate a twice as large amount.

In September 2020, the authorities of Abkhazia admitted that the ban does not work, decided to come to terms with the activities of the "farmers" and legitimize it.

The Cabinet of Ministers demanded that all miners register as legal entities or individual entrepreneurs, install the meter for electricity consumed, officially register equipment and apply for connection to networks. In addition, the import of special equipment was banned for two months, and the Ministry of Economics was instructed to develop and submit to parliament a draft law to regulate cryptocurrency production.

For miners, a special tariff for electricity in the amount of one and a half rubles per kilowatts was also installed, which is much larger than the ordinary electricity price in Abkhazia.

One of the major miners, who wished to remain anonymous, said that such a high tariff would not solve the problem, but will aggravate it:
“At this price, it will be profitable only for those who have a new model. In large volumes, someone is unlikely to set it-it is very expensive, plus everyone wants to make profit quickly and therefore they buy old cars, as a result, people will be forced to deceive again or not show all equipment so as not to go bankrupt, ”he shared with the Jam News portal.

The Minister of Economics, in turn, said that "in the fall and winter, during a period of low water level in the reservoir at the hydroelectric power station on the Inguri River, Abkhazia was forced to buy light in Russia." And the republic buys it at the Russian tariff - significantly more than two rubles per kilowatts. “For the period of the perenok (from Russia), miners will pay for light at the Russian tariff. Or they will stop their activities until its end, ”Ozgan concluded.

As a result, the problem has not yet been solved. In November 2020 in Abkhazia, fan shutdown of electricity was introduced. Every day the light is turned off in a total of six hours. By November, all the 40 percent of the energy generation, which is produced in Inguri of the hydroelectric power station (the remaining 60 percent are intended for Georgia) were spent on November.

Power engineers say that the activities of mining farms take about 30 percent of the energy consumed.

Local oppositionists believe that measures to legalize the mining system did not work, because no more than 20 percent of cryptocurrency miners were ready to follow them. Moreover, supporters of the opposition believe that officials of different levels may be involved in the “crypto business”, and require tough measures to stop the illegal activities of miners, “causing enormous damage to the energy system of Abkhazia and aggravating the difficult situation of our citizens”.