Just a few hours and Bitcoin collapsed by 10%
The bitcoin exchange rate collapsed from 46.8 thousand to 42.5 thousand dollars. Among the majority of altcoins, there is also a decline in the exchange rate. Analyst’s attribute this to the protests in Kazakhstan, as well as the expected start of an increase in interest rates in the United States.
On January 5, at the end of the day, the ВТС rate slipped to the minimum indicators of December. Then it fell to 42 thousand dollars. On the morning of January 6, the exchange rate is held at just above 43 thousand dollars. Ether, which is on the 2nd place in terms of market capitalization, slipped after bitcoin to $ 3.406. In the “red zone” there were such coins as: DOT – a drop to $ 25, BNB – a drop to $ 457, XRP – a drop to $ 0.7092, SOL – a drop to $ 144.9. Losses are also observed in the UNI and AAVE tokens – a decline in the exchange rate to $ 16, 31 and $214.9, respectively.
Changes in the cryptocurrency market to some extent occur due to unrest in the stock market. They began to be observed after the minutes of the recent meeting of the US Federal Reserve were published. The unexpected inflationary growth pushed the regulator to tighten monetary policy. In this regard, they decided to increase the interest rate in March 2022. The news caused sharp declines in the stock indices of the United States and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.
The energy collapse in Kazakhstan is also one of the reasons for the change in the course of the ВТС. In this country, the cost of gas has increased significantly due to the shortage of oil. The administration of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has imposed a state of emergency due to mass protests and riots. In addition, the CSTO countries have sent collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan. The shutdown of the Internet across the country on January 5 forced local miners to stop bitcoin mining. This was followed by a serious decrease in the hashrate of most mining pools. Larry Cermak, an analyst at The Block, named the pools that suffered the most – 1THash, OKExPool and KuCoinPool. Their hashrate fell by 82%, 46.3% and 22.7%, respectively.
18% of the global hash rate of the bitcoin network is located in Kazakhstan. Such estimates for 2021 were provided by the Center for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge. In the same year, the Chinese authorities banned bitcoin mining in the country. After that, miners began to actively transport their equipment to other countries, including Kazakhstan.
The turbulent situation in Kazakhstan did not affect the favorable attitude of the authorities to mining in any way. The Ministry of Digital Development of Kazakhstan has recorded 146 companies as of January 2022 that are engaged in cryptocurrency mining. Among these structures are 53 companies that are already actively working in this area, 82 firms that are just about to start mining. It also includes 11 organizations that are infrastructure providers.
In January 2022, Kazakhstan adopted a law on the introduction of an additional electricity tax for cryptocurrency miners in the amount of 1 tenge per kWh (about $0.0023). Until recently, this country was attractive for cheap electricity for miners. However, in November last year, some miners began to leave the country due to the energy crisis.
