electricity
PRISTINA (awp / dpa) – Kosovo police on Saturday seized hundreds of devices used to mine cryptocurrency and arrested a member of the Serbian minority, an electricity-consuming activity the government has temporarily banned in an attempt to solve the problem. ongoing energy crisis.
To create (mine) cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, you have to have powerful computers solve complex equations, which consumes a lot of energy.
Amid tensions with the Serbian minority, which has not paid for electricity since the end of the 1998-99 war, the overwhelmingly Albanian government of Kosovo announced on Tuesday a temporary ban on cryptocurrency mining in order to reduce energy consumption.
During their operation, the police “confiscated 272 devices used to produce Bitcoins” and one person was arrested, according to a police statement.
“The operation took place without incident,” said Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla on Facebook.
The confiscated equipment used in electricity the equivalent of the monthly consumption of 500 houses, or between 60,000 and 120,000 euros, according to the Minister of Finance Hekuran Murati, also on Facebook.
“We cannot allow some to get rich illegally at the expense of taxpayers,” he added.
The approximately 120,000 Serbs who remained in Kosovo after the end of the 1998-99 war remain loyal to Belgrade and do not recognize the authority of Pristina.
According to local media, the energy consumption of the Serbian minority living in northern Kosovo costs around 12 million euros per year.
The energy crisis in Kosovo worsened after the breakdown of a production unit at one of the country’s two power plants, prompting the government to take electricity restriction measures in December.
Earlier this week, police had already carried out two operations in the Albanian community and seized 70 cryptocurrency mining devices.
According to the Minister of the Economy Artane Rizvanolli, this hunt for mining devices is an “emergency measure” to face the crisis.
However, some experts have questioned the legality of these police operations, as there is no law in Kosovo regulating the cryptocurrency sector.
Pristina assures, however, that a bill on cryptocurrencies was presented in October to Parliament for adoption before the end of 2021, but that it is still pending.
ih / sr / cls