Police in Kosovo stepped up their efforts to crack down on crypto miners in the country and confiscated more than 300 mining machines on January 8 alone.
A Notice Police released by Kosovar Police on January 8th revealed that they had seized 272 “Antminer” bitcoin mining machines in Leposavic Municipality, and Another 39 mining machines near Prishtina.
The Kosovar police confiscated 272 “Antminer” crypto-mining machines in Leposavic on January 8th. Source: Kosovo police
Meanwhile the police too stopped a driver with 6 crypto mining machines with 42 graphics cards (GPUs) near Druar in Vushtrri. The driver has since been questioned and released.
Economy Minister Artane Rizvanolli tweeted her support for the Kosovar police and wrote: “Tens of thousands of euros per month in taxpayers’ money are saved = energy for hundreds of Kosovar families during the crisis.”
Energy shortage in Kosovo
In December, Kosovo declared a state of emergency for 60 days amid an energy crisis and electricity shortage. Since then, the Minister for Economic Affairs a blanket ban on crypto mining on January 5th. Kosovo currently imports over 40% of its energy.
As before reported by Cointelegraph, Bitcoin mining consumes 101 TWh per year or more of energy than the entire country of the Philippines. Even so, miners are increasingly turning to it renewable energy sources, particularly in the United States, which has become the new center for mining operations.
To According to the Dutch news platform The Paypers, crypto mining has been on the rise in Kosovo for some time. Since the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999, electricity has been free for the residents of the predominantly Serbian communities in the north until recently.
Related: Iran suspends electricity exports because of crypto mining and hot summer
At the end of November 2021, the electricity grid operator KOSTT announced that it would no longer supply the four municipalities in the north of the country: Mitrovica Nord, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic with free electricity.
The Balkan country was part of Serbia until 2008 when it declared its independence and has maintained these subsidies ever since. Several other nations have also made their views known in the past few months Mining-Related Power Outage Concerns, including Iran and Kazakhstan.
