Iceland, which is suffering from a power shortage, is reducing electricity to some industrial clients and turning away new requests for power from cryptocurrency miners, reported Bloomberg, citing a statement from national power company Landsvirkjun.
Fast facts
- The Nordic island nation is now reducing power supply for heavy consumers, including aluminum smelters, data centers and fish meal factories, due to lower hydro reservoir levels, a power station’s malfunction, and a delay in receiving power from an external supplier, according to the report.
- Many crypto miners — including Canada’s Hive Blockchain Technologies, Hong Kong-listed Genesis Mining and Bitfury Holding BV — have set up operations in Iceland, given the country’s easy and cheap hydropower resources.
- Northern Europe is one of the popular destinations amid the Chinese mining exodus. However, some have raised concerns over the environmental harm the energy-intensive industry could bring. Norway, for example, is considering backing a European Bitcoin mining ban, as reported by Euronews Next.
- However, the Bitcoin network hashrate has been on the rise despite the recent price crash. On Tuesday, the total Bitcoin hashrate stood at 172.42 million terahashes per second, almost approaching 180.67 million TH/s — an all-time high, according to data from Blockchain.com. The hashrate took a nose-dive earlier this year, plunging to 84.79 million TH/s on July 3, the lowest since September 2019, though it has been steadily recovering since then.
