Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a law providing for the introduction of an additional levy on mining. Earlier it was approved by the Parliament’s Senate.
The National Association of Blockchain and Data-Center Industry of Kazakhstan told ForkLog that the move would have a very negative impact on the industry’s investment appeal.
According to the association’s president Alan Dorzhiev, miners from China considering Kazakhstan as a potential migration jurisdiction are also “put off by this initiative”.
Deputy Albert Rau stated that authorities see no “critical consequences” from the law’s adoption. The media call him the bill’s initiator, but he himself said that this was a “government version of amendments”.
The law provides for an additional charge of 1 tenge per kWh of electricity consumed by mining. The new rules are to take effect on 1 January 2022.
Authorities said that introducing an additional charge for electricity used to mine cryptocurrencies would “bring out of the shadows those miners who are in the grey area”.
The National Association of Kazakhstan’s Blockchain and Data-Center Industry had already warned of the negative consequences of the law’s adoption:
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