Balkan Bitcoin Miners Relocate From Kosovo Where Price Premium Was $20k

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Bulgarians, Romanians, Albanians, Serbs and Croats eager to try their hand on some Bitcoin mining might be swirling the internet this week looking for some cheap Kosovan mining equipment.

After the government of Kosovo earlier this month installed a temporary ban on crypto mining in the country because of a mounting energy crisis. Facebook and Telegram posts offering cheap Bitcoin mining equipment are all the rage in the Balkans.

Because of Russian troops gathering on the Ukrainian border and the Kremlin upping the prices of gas supplies for Balkan countries, most governments in the former Eastern European states are faced with difficult choices when it comes to energy.

In Kosovo, bitcoin miners asked to unplug https://t.co/JisV2g9AhM

— youssef tarchoun (@Bigshow00000) January 16, 2022

Kosovo’s minister of economy, Dr Artane Rizvanolli, explained the ban in the Guardian newspaper, said:

We have allocated €20m for subsidising energy, which is probably not going to be sufficient, and this is taxpayers’ money that is going to subsidise electricity consumption.

Panic as Kosovo pulls the plug on its energy-guzzling #Bitcoin minershttps://t.co/Js6X51Q8O8
Speculators rush to sell off their kit as Balkan state announces a crypto clampdown to ease electricity crisis pic.twitter.com/HtkRNosUAf

— Svein Tveitdal (@tveitdal) January 16, 2022

On the other hand we have crypto mining, which is a highly energy-intensive activity and is not regulated.

$20k premium on price

The fact that so many Bitcoin rigs are being sold off cheaply is quite surprising though, as analysts calculated that the ‘price premium’ for mining in Kosovo, which has some of the cheapest energy prices in the European continent, was quite high. The cost of mining a single Bitcoin in Kosovo before the ban was around $20k. With Bitcoin still priced around $40k, that makes for a nice profit. Apparently, neighboring countries might see an inflow of Bitcoin miners because of the ban. With that, the Bitcoin hashrate is once again becoming ever more international.

The anonymous cryptoKapo, who manages online crypto communities in the Balkans explained:

There’s a lot of panic and they’re selling it or trying to move it to neighboring countries.