The crypto-mining farm near Bishkek consumes vast amounts of power, raising concerns about its impact on the nation's power grid.
The operation close to an electrical substation in the Kemin district was paying for its electricity at the highest possible rate, Japarov said, claiming that Kyrgyzstan enjoys a power surplus in the summer. But is the operation as good a deal for the country as officials are making it out to be? Or were powerful insiders, not for the first time, enjoying special protection?Ibraev's sudden irritation over lost profits is in sharp contrast to his comments a little more than a week ago, when he was spearheading a national energy-saving campaign.
And despite the government covering the deficit with imports, many parts of Kyrgyzstan still suffered power cuts last winter. The enterprise that locals say was built on the territory of a former state-owned summer camp for children is certainly well protected. Solarcoin's usage during that period dwarfed that of TransElectro , a private electricity company, and was three times the amount used by the operators of Jerooy, the country's second-largest gold mine, Alliance Altyn.But the supposition that Kemin's cryptocurrency behemoth belonged to the company was confirmed by grid official Gulzhigit Murzakarimov, who told RFE/RL that the company's 30 MW-capacity operation might expand in the near future.
The process is incredibly energy-intensive and also expensive in jurisdictions where electricity tariffs are high. Since Solarcoin's operation began in December, the price of the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has almost doubled, and is currently just under $30,0000 per Bitcoin.According to data published by industry sources, Kyrgyzstan's neighbor Kazakhstan has now become the second-biggest crypto-mining country in the world after the United States.
That is significant insofar as Iminov was in November 2022 elected to the board of directors of JSC Electric Power Plants -- the majority state-owned company that oversees nearly all of Kyrgyzstan's power generation -- just as construction of Solarcoin's operations were nearing completion.