Venezuelan authorities have launched a crackdown on cryptocurrency miners in a bid to protect the South American nation's power grid.
In an Instagram post on Friday, the country's Ministry of Energy (Spanish acronym: MPPEE) said that this would disconnect all mining operations from the country's National Electricity System (NES).
Minors are needed to help Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to work as intended. These operations are often large warehouses full of computers that use enormous amounts of energy to mint new digital coins and keep a crypto network secure.
However, such operations have been criticized by lawmakers around the world because of the amount of energy they consume.
The MPPEE said in its message that this decision was taken with the aim of “avoiding a high impact on demand” on the network and allowing the SEN “to continue offering an efficient and reliable service to all the Venezuelan people “.
The post featured video of authorities attacking what appear to be cryptocurrency mining operations.
Venezuela, which has suffered a devastating economic collapse since 2010, has long suffered from problems with its grid. Even if the problem is not as bad as it was back in 2019some rural areas of the country are still experiencing power cuts.
Last September, Venezuelan police raided a prison where inmates were running secret Bitcoin mining operations. And earlier in 2023, the country's regulator spear repression against minors.
Despite this, the country remains favorable to the use of cryptography: the state oil company PDVSA would like to use digital assets. USDT to trade for its crude and fuel exports in order to circumvent American oil sanctions, Reuters reported last month.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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