Energy use in a Kuwaiti city fell by over 50% after authorities cracked down on crypto mining
These crypto miners are allegedly causing blackouts.

Authorities in Al-Wafrah, Kuwait, cracked down on alleged crypto miners in the city, which resulted in a 55% decrease in power consumption the following week. According to Reuters, Kuwait is in a power crisis as summer temperatures are soaring. Its growing number of citizens are pushing the power grid to keep cool while some power plants are experiencing maintenance delays. Kuwaiti authorities allege that cryptocurrency miners are pushing power demand beyond the country's capacity, leading to blackouts and a "major" power crisis.
Cryptocurrency trading is illegal in Kuwait, but mining is not explicitly banned. Nevertheless, the government's interior ministry said it "constitutes an unlawful exploitation of electrical power…and may cause outages affecting residential, commercial, and service areas, posing a direct threat to public safety." The government raid covered about 100 homes suspected of hosting crypto mining operations, with some using more than 20 times the electricity consumption of the average Kuwaiti home.
Crypto mining is a power-intensive activity, with one Bitcoin transaction consuming more than 1,047 kWh of electricity — about the same amount of power that the average U.S. household uses in over a month. Researchers estimated that Kuwaiti miners were responsible for less than half a percent of global mining activities in 2022. However, Digiconomist founder Alex de Vries-Gao told Reuters, "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."
Kuwait is a small, oil-rich country in the Middle East, where electricity is affordable, probably because of its low fuel costs. Because of this, it's become an attractive area for crypto miners, as power consumption is one of the biggest costs of their operation. However, Kuwait's limited power reserves and expanding urban area mean these operations compete against residents and other businesses for electricity. Given that the authorities ban cryptocurrency trading, it makes sense for them to also crack down on mining operations.
This incident highlights the increasing power demands of high-powered computing. And while crypto mining might be setting records in power consumption, AI data centers are the bigger threat to our electricity supply. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg says that limitations in our power grid will constrain AI growth, with Meta and other companies turning to nuclear reactors to provide the electricity their massive data centers need. And even if there's enough power to be had, they also cause reduced power quality in nearby residential areas, reducing the lifespan of electrical appliances in our homes.
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
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rluker5 I think it must be 1MWh to mine a Bitcoin, not just make a transaction.Reply
If it is just to make a transaction, we don't have the fossil fuels to waste on that. -
Pierce2623
Well you’re never guaranteed a coin…so it wouldn’t make much sense to put a power usage on that. It completely depends on landing on the correct hash before competitors. More power just lets you try more hashes in a given time period.rluker5 said:I think it must be 1MWh to mine a Bitcoin, not just make a transaction.
If it is just to make a transaction, we don't have the fossil fuels to waste on that. -
Findecanor Eh... last time I checked how mined cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin) worked, "mining" was interlinked with transactions, so it was impossible to do "mining" without being involved in cryptocurrency trading.Reply
By the way, in my opinion the culprits should be ground up and used as fertiliser to grow crops. Then at least then they would have added something good to the world and its ecosystem instead of leaching on it. -
USAFRet
somethingsomething Climate ChangeTheyStoppedit said:Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them -
JamesJones44 TheyStoppedit said:Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them
Resources, resources, resources. People complaining about inflation, but then not caring about wasting resources on digital money is a contradiction (not singling you out, but I know people who think this way). If you waste resources on digital money, prices of those resource will go up due to scarcity (aka things that generate energy and the components that go into them), it's basic economics. Whether people want to believe it or not, there are more consciences to every action than just what appears on the surface. -
Notton
If they're causing blackouts, as the news suggests, then it becomes a societal problem, rather than an individual contract issue.TheyStoppedit said:Who cares? As long as they are paying their bill, let them
Kuwait is a hot place to live and if you don't have A/C, that can become a life or death situation.
IDK how electricity use is governed in Kuwait, but typically high power usage facilities, like servers and factories require a special contract and area to run. That special contract is there to guarantee infrastructure is built to handle the load.
Where as if you spread out a bunch of crypto mines in a city, that city might not have the infrastructure to handle the load because it was never designed for that. -
SomeoneElse23 USAFRet said:somethingsomething Climate Change
I consider this a political answer since "climate change" is a matter of perspective and is certainly debatable. -
USAFRet
You may consider it "political".SomeoneElse23 said:I consider this a political answer since "climate change" is a matter of perspective and is certainly debatable.
I see it as...
Why the extra consumption of non-renewables, and pushing extra pollution/GHG/smog into the shared airspace.