Users who mine cryptocurrencies must report their consumption. Special rates and investment requirements could get established for mining farms.
The national government of Argentina intends to find a way to stop the energetic crisis in the country and thus prevent the power outages of the last week from being repeated in the future. To that end, the magnifying glass got spotted on bitcoin (BTC) mining farms. The main idea is to know where they are, increase the rates for this sector and discourage such ventures.
CAMMESA recently sent large users and self-generators of electricity a letter requesting that they must bring further details about their cryptocurrency mining activities.
With these data, Argentina intends to establish an extra cost for this industry in Argentina and require infrastructure investments to help sustain the supposedly high demand they represent. A consequence of these increased requirements would be to discourage the proliferation of mining infrastructure.
Users must send information on the energy they consumed in crypto mining during 2020 and 2021. Users must also bring information about the expected consumption for 2022 and 2023. The data must get sent within 15 business days after the request.
The measure does not affect all miners equally. In principle, people who mine from their homes do not need to report their activities. The request from CAMMESA and the Undersecretary of Electric Energy aimed mainly at mining farms with higher processing power and electricity demand.
The Energy Crisis in Argentina
Much of the Argentine territory reported high temperatures in recent weeks due to summer in the southern hemisphere. With indicators that surpass 35 ° C in many days, the National Meteorological Service has issued several alerts for the population to take care of the heatwave.
This weather generated a high demand to maintain the energetic infrastructure of the entire nation. In various places, such as the city of Buenos Aires and different parts of the homonymous province, Santa Fe and Córdoba, there were power outages at various times of the week.
Although the rains of January 1 painted a worrying panorama, the situation went easier. The State continues to search for responsible with the excuse of preventing these kinds of struggles in the future. And that’s when bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining appears on the stage.
As in this case, bitcoin mining receives accusations of requesting vast amounts of energy from the electricity grids of many countries. However, some reports conclude that this industry consumes less than 0.1% of the energy source worldwide, and even more than half of it would come from renewable sources, according to other research.
However, this situation in Argentina is not new, and it seems to be closely related to the lack of investment in infrastructure in recent years. Therefore, linking the crisis and power outages exclusively with the growth of cryptocurrency mining in 2021 is perhaps a bit hasty.
By: Jenson Nuñez
