“We have not been able to operate properly since October 13, when the first power cuts hit us,” he told Rest of World. “And we are kept in the dark as to when we would be able to work at full capacity or what solutions the power grid operator, KEGOC, is going to come up with.”

In September 2021, when China banned all cryptocurrency-related activity, it reshaped an industry for which it had provided a haven. Miners scrambled into crypto-friendly Kazakhstan, propelling the country into world’s second-biggest Bitcoin production base, by one estimate.

But six months later, the industry is already being pushed out. Facing civil unrest and blackouts on the electricity grid, the government has throttled the power supply of the miners it once welcomed.

Smaller players can either flee somewhere like Russia — a risky jurisdiction, whose hostile politics would imply another temporary home — or, for bigger outfits, swallow higher costs to join the swelling ranks in the U.S., where the mining industry is clearly beginning to concentrate.

From January 1, it imposed a tax of one tenge (0.20 cents) per kilowatt-hour on registered miners; by February, legislators were already pushing a proposal to increase it tenfold to 10 tenge per kWh. The same month, digital development minister, Bağdat Musin, labeled unregistered mining an “economic crime.”

Some of the country’s biggest crypto miners have already fled for greener pastures.

Illegal miners can operate covertly in densely populated urban areas, camouflaged by general use.

The department also relies on public tipoffs; a WhatsApp hotline has been implemented, along with the offer of monetary rewards. On Facebook, the digital minister has implored people to report on any suspicious mining-adjacent activity.

“We’ve already received offers to relocate to Russia, but we are also considering Argentina and Chile as possible options.”