one of the unintended consequences of the cryptocurrency boom in Kazakhstan has been its contribution to what are essentially brownouts, which in kind likely contributed to last month’s protests and subsequent crackdown by the authoritarian government. as early as October of 2021, the Kazakh government was having to ration power because of the additional demand brought on by crypto miners and how much energy they were using:

Those tempted to relocate to the country for its low energy prices had found that its aging power grid was not prepared to handle the sudden influx of miners, which caused a spike in the consumption of energy. The government said mining accounts for 8 percent of the country’s capacity. Grappling with blackouts and power cuts, in October 2021 the government announced it would start rationing power supply to registered miners and unplug them if the grid came under any stress.

The Kazakh government said last year it planned to crack down first on unregistered “grey” miners who it estimates might be consuming twice as much power as the “white” or officially registered ones. Last year, its energy ministry said that “grey” mining may consume up to 1.2GW of power, which together with “white” miners’ 600MW comes up to about 8% of Kazakhstan’s total generation capacity.