3 days ago
Authorities make disturbing discovery after raiding hundreds of homes driving up utility bills: 'Posing a direct threat to public safety'
Kuwaiti authorities have begun to crack down on unauthorized crypto mining, and a recent raid in the southern Al-Wafrah region led to a 55% drop in local power use within a week, according to Reuters. The enforcement efforts come as the oil-rich nation faces mounting blackouts and extreme pressure on its electrical grid.
While crypto trading itself is banned in Kuwait, mining has not been explicitly outlawed, per the report. This is a loophole that miners exploited. Officials say they raided nearly 100 homes under suspicion of mining crypto, and some were using more than 20 times the energy of a typical Kuwaiti household.
The country's worsening energy crisis is driven by rapid population growth, rising temperatures, and delayed maintenance at power plants, per Reuters. With summer heat spiking demand for cooling systems, authorities say crypto mining is pushing the grid to its limits.
"It only takes a very small share of the total bitcoin mining network to have a significant impact on the relatively small total electricity consumption of Kuwait," Digiconomist founder Alex de Vries-Gai told Reuters.
Kuwait's interior ministry said crypto mining constitutes an "unlawful exploitation of electrical power" that "may cause outages affecting residential, commercial and service areas, posing a direct threat to public safety."
The environmental cost of crypto can also be steep. A single Bitcoin transaction uses more than 1,189 kilowatt-hours of electricity — about as much as the average U.S. household in 41 days, according to Digiconomist. Globally, over 65% of crypto mining runs on dirty fuels, according to U.N. researchers.
While cleaner sources may make up more of the energy mix since the time of the 2023 report, it is clear that crypto is adding significant volumes of heat-trapping pollution into the atmosphere and worsening air quality as a result.
Even when power comes from renewables, the grid can experience strain if there's not enough generated to support energy-intensive operations. Because of this, some companies are focused on developing cryptocurrencies that require less power.
Online internet users supported the crackdown in Kuwait. "Finally — a sane decision," one Reddit commenter wrote.
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