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posted by martyb on Saturday January 08 2022, @10:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the charge-the-miners-more? dept.

Kosovo bans cryptocurrency mining after blackouts:

The government says security services will identify and clamp down on sources of cryptocurrency mining.

The mining is energy intensive and involves verifying digital transactions to get cryptocurrencies as a reward.

While all of Europe faces sharp price rises, Kosovo is enforcing rolling blackouts amid an electricity shortage.

The Balkan state's largest coal-fired power plant was shut down last month over a technical issue, forcing the government to import electricity at high prices.

A 60-day state of emergency, declared in December, gave the government powers to allocate more money for energy imports and impose stricter restrictions on power usage.

The blackouts have sparked protests and calls for the resignation of Economy Minister Artane Rizvanolli.

Energy prices are skyrocketing across Europe for various reasons, including low supplies from Russia and high demand for natural gas as economies recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The spike has been fuelled by geopolitical tensions with Russia, which supplies one third of Europe's gas. Russia has rejected European accusations that it has limited gas deliveries while tensions are raised


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday January 08 2022, @12:55PM (4 children)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Saturday January 08 2022, @12:55PM (#1211043)

    The first of many one blessed with the gift of common sense and decency would hope.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 08 2022, @01:31PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 08 2022, @01:31PM (#1211047)

    people can be convinced. however it gets extremely difficult to eradicate crypto"currency" if people "producing" oil, gas, coal use their profits (in fiat currency, duh) to support (read: buy when coins are dropping) crypto"currency"... obviously they don't care what the energy "produced" is used for as long as more gets destro... errr ... used.
    funnily enough the above could also be a indicator how "contaminated" a government is by their respective local fossil fuel industry; a country government being lax or even careless towards crypto"currency" is probably one were government officials and local fossil fuel bigwigs regularly have lunch togethersssss ...
    combine the above with how supportive a government is towards decentralized renewable energy production and you got a sure fire way to determine if the country is actually fascism at its core (read: cheap or no support for renewables and a no-care attitude towards crypto"currency", points towards fascism)
    (*)fascism, a unholy marriage between industry and "elected" (law-making) government (to profit only a few)...

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 08 2022, @06:46PM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 08 2022, @06:46PM (#1211109) Journal
      Sorry, the government that interferes less in the economic activities of its citizens is not the more fascist one.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 09 2022, @01:59PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 09 2022, @01:59PM (#1211241)

        you're a moron! that's what i said.
        fascism is the unholy marriage of clubbermint and industry. they work for and pat each other on the back.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 09 2022, @05:06PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 09 2022, @05:06PM (#1211264) Journal

          fascism is the unholy marriage of clubbermint and industry.

          Nope. Plutarchy [thefreedictionary.com] is another sort of unholy marriage of government and industry that doesn't happen to be fascist.

          What's missing from your attempt at definition is the key point that Fascism is a totalitarian ideology. The state is supreme to everything with private industry existing, but being completely subservient to the whims of the state. Often definitions will go further and include some far right or racial components, but in my view, those aren't relevant to the definition.

          So, for example, I would consider both China and Russia to be more fascist than the entirety of the developed world.

          Moving on:

          you're a moron! that's what i said.

          Nope. Let's look at the money quote:

          however it gets extremely difficult to eradicate crypto"currency"

          Why would we ever want to eradicate cryptocurrency? Sorry, this is a classic example of government interference in the activities of its citizens. Your Orwellian attempt to equate defending peoples' choices to use cryptocurrencies and to mine them with fascism didn't go unnoticed.

          It's also worth noting that a lot of cryptocurrency activity goes on in places with low fossil fuel use (like the US Northwest or Iceland). It turns out that cheap electricity not fossil fuel powered electricity is the important factor in cryptocurrency mining.