Kosovo police have stepped up their efforts to crack down on crypto miners in the country, seizing more than 300 mining machines on January 8 alone.
A advertisement issued by the Kosovo police on January 8 revealed that it had seized 272 "Antminer" Bitcoin mining machines in Leposavic municipality, and other 39 mining machines near Pristina.
Meanwhile, the police too arrested a driver carrying 6 crypto mining machines with 42 graphics cards (GPUs) near Druar in Vushtrri. Since then, the driver has been interviewed and released.
Economy Minister Artane Rizvanolli tweeted her support for the Kosovo police, writing: "Tens of thousands of euros saved per month of taxpayer money = energy for hundreds of Kosovar families during the crisis."
Kosovo's energy restriction
In December, Kosovo declared a state of emergency for 60 days amid an energy crisis and electricity shortages. Since then, the Minister of the Economy introduced a blanket ban on crypto mining On January 5. Currently, Kosovo imports more than 40% of its energy.
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Bitcoin mining uses 101 TWh per year or more energy than the entire country of the Philippines. Despite this, miners are increasingly turning to Renewable energy sourcesespecially in the United States, which has become the new center of mining operations.
According To the Netherlands-based news platform The Paypers, crypto mining has been on the rise in Kosovo for some time. Until very recently, electricity was free to those living in the Serb-majority northern municipalities since the end of the Kosovo War in 1999.
Related: Iran Halts Electricity Exports Due To Crypto Mining And Hot Summer
At the end of November 2021, the electric grid system operator KOSTT announced that it will no longer supply free energy to the four municipalities in the north of the country: Mitrovica North, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic.
The Balkan country was part of Serbia until 2008 when it declared its independence and has maintained these subsidies ever since. In recent months, several other nations have also expressed mining-related power outages concerns, including Iran and Kazakhstan.
