Abkhaz legislators have decided to finally get rid of cryptocurrency miners by adopting a bill to completely ban this activity in the first reading. Parliament Speaker Lasha Ashuba straightforwardly stated the need to 'combat the phenomenon' as if it were some mysterious epidemic.
And how nicely everything is turning! Now, mining can land you in jail for up to three years. Not a bad turn for an industry that was recently content with fines and confiscation of equipment, isn't it?
Particularly amusing is the gradation of punishments: if you found up to five miners, prepare for a 50,000 rubles fine, and if more than five, you need to shell out 20,000 for each unit. At the same time, confiscation of equipment is provided in any case, to avoid standing up twice.
And it all started in 2018 with 'temporary measures' that gradually grew into annual extensions of prohibitions. Now, the authorities have decided to put an end to this story, turning mining from an administrative offense into a criminal one.
Notably, previous measures, according to Ashuba himself, 'did not work out'. And now the parliamentarians, having gathered for an extraordinary meeting, decided to hit the miners with the full power of the criminal code.
The basis of all this legislative activity is a basic problem of energy deficit. The power grids of Abkhazia simply cannot withstand the load from mining farms, and the population suffers from power outages.
Well, it seems miners in Abkhazia will either have to find a new refuge or prepare for acquaintance with not so distant places. The authorities of the republic are clearly tired of playing cat and mouse with cryptocurrency extractors.