Large crypto-mining farm discovered in Abkhazia; owner said to be "influential person"

Crypto-mining in Abkhazia

In Abkhazia, a large crypto-mining farm was discovered in the former mining village of Akarmara. Social networks claim that it consisted of 500 cryptocurrency mining machines and belonged to an influential person from the entourage of President Aslan Bzhania.

However, the official summary of the Interior Ministry, which came out with a week’s delay, lists two ordinary local residents as the owners of the farm. According to the Interior Ministry, there were 500, not 108 apparatuses.

Given the lateness with which this information was announced, most people on social networks did not believe the Interior Ministry and concluded that the official summary was significantly “corrected”.

Due to illegal mining, Abkhazia has been experiencing an acute shortage of electricity for several years. Since 2019, the republic’s electricity consumption has increased from 2 to 3 billion megawatts.

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Previously, the deficit was covered by free cross-flow from Russia. But now Moscow has demanded to pay 3.90 rubles [$0.042] for each kilowatt provided. For November-December 2023 Abkhazia is billed 900 million rubles [about $9 million 700 thousand].

Authorities of the republic periodically fight against mining farms. But, as a rule, only small miners fall into the net of law enforcement agencies, as officially “there are no large farms on the territory of the republic”.

Abkhazian Telegram channel “Aiashara” calculated that 108 Bitfury mining machines designed for industrial mining of cryptocurrency consumed more than 21,000 kWh per day. That is, a farm with such a number of machines consumes 7 million 200 thousand kWh in a year. According to the new Russian tariff, this comes out to over 28 million rubles [over $301 thousand].

“Ayashara”, citing unofficial sources, also reports that because of the discovery of the farm in Akarmara, the head of the district administration resigned, and the head of the district power plant and the head of the local depa