Despite major internet blackouts amid anti-government protests in Kazakhstan, some Bitcoin (BTC) miners operating in the country have yet to plan to leave the country.
BIT Mining, one of the largest BTC mining companies that moved its operations from China to Kazakhstan last year, is still assessing the impact of the political unrest in Kazakhstan, reported on Friday the Chinese industry news agency 8BTCnews.
“It is unlikely that our mining machines will be evacuated to North America”a BIT Mining spokesperson was quoted as saying, adding that the company will monitor the situation closely.
The representative also noted that Kazakhstan is not BIT Mining’s main business area, as it has a number of “mid-to-high-end mining machines” deployed in North America. “It is unlikely that the machines will be withdrawn from Kazakhstan to North America, and more actions will be announced”says the report.
According to some sources, the Kazakhstan-based miners have managed to keep their units online despite internet outages.
“Some miners in Kazakhstan told us that the Internet was temporarily restored on January 7. In addition, the 4G network of Chinese phones is also effective intermittently. The industry expects the country to return to normal next Monday ”, reported Chinese blockchain journalist Colin Wu on Friday.
Sources also said that the operations of some miners were not affected because they are mostly located in remote areas, while the protests were concentrated in the urban area of Almaty. “No miners have been heard of being robbed, but they are unable to mine due to the network disruption,” Wu reported.
According to the latest data from network stability data provider NetBlocks, the Internet in Kazakhstan had been shut down for 36 hours on Friday morning, with connectivity levels of 5%.
⚠️ Update: It’s now Friday morning in #Kazakhstan where internet has been shut down for some 36 hours, placing public safety at risk and leaving friends and family cut off.
Connectivity levels continue to flatline at just 5% of ordinary levels.
Report: https://t.co/Op5GwzXKbh pic.twitter.com/xQIYdZVhbK
– NetBlocks (@netblocks) January 6, 2022
⚠️ Update: It is now Friday morning in Kazakhstan, where the internet has been closed for about 36 hours, putting public safety at risk and leaving friends and family isolated.
Connectivity levels continue to stabilize at just 5% of ordinary levels.
But despite ongoing blackouts across the country, the unrest in Kazakhstan appears to have had little to no effect on Bitcoin’s global hash rate, according to some sources. Data from major Bitcoin blockchain explorer Blockchain.com suggests that Bitcoin’s total hash rate has not decreased at all since early 2022.
BIT Mining and other major Kazakh mining service operators, such as Chinese company Canaan, did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
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