The bitcoin hashrate suffered a dramatic drop last week, shortly after Kazakhstan disrupted the internet signal across the country.
Mining on the bitcoin network has been hit hard with the restriction of internet access in Kazakhstan. With the country facing civil protests over rising fuel prices, the government decided to suspend the internet last Wednesday (5).
Located in Central Asia and one of the top bitcoin mining hubs globally, the suspension of internet access in Kazakhstan has caused the cryptoasset’s hashrate to drop drastically over the past week.
With protests that started in western Kazakhstan, clashes between police, protesters, and the army were on the front pages of newspapers in the country, which suffered repression because of the increase in fuel prices.
In an attempt to contain the protests that turned violent, the Kazakh government decided to interrupt internet access to prevent communication among protesters.
With this, the drop in internet connections also affected mining farms set up in the country. Until then, Kazakhstan was the second-largest bitcoin mining hub globally, accounting for about 18% of all computing power.
Second only to the United States, Kazakhstan has become a significant bitcoin mining hub shortly after China decided to restrict the activity. Until the first half of 2021, China led among the world’s countries that mined the most bitcoin.
The crisis in Kazakhstan, coupled with the change in monetary policy signaled by the Fed, caused the price of bitcoin to plummet in the last week, accompanying the 14% drop in the hashrate.
