Venezuela Banned Crypto Mining From State-Owned Housing

Venezuela banned all crypto mining from public housing or any other state-owned housing and neighborhoods that are a part of the “Gran Mision Vivienda” project, as we are reading more in the following crypto news today.

According to the government, crypto mining can harm the electricity distribution of the country which is why Venezuela banned all crypto mining from the country. During the official speech on July 15^th, Villaroel stated that any kind of mining equipment related to the crypto mining is banned in public housing because of “high power consumption” and for widely “violating” the electrical supply policy. The minister added:

 “In this coordinated work, we have detected the harmful effects of these elements of high electrical demand in the public houses of the Gran Misión Vivienda project.”

Gran Mision Vivienda is a plan created by the Venezuelan government to grant housing to citizens that have low income during the long-lasting economic crisis that the country has been facing already even before the Coronavirus pandemic showed up. Villarroel said that all crypto mining activities could harm the distribution of the power supply in every neighborhood but other critics commented on social media that the country was negligent in improving the local electric supply system. The problem went massive after the national electrical shutdown in 2019 as a result of the failure of “Guri” hydroelectric dam.

The Bolivarian National Guard of Puerto Ordaz seized 315 BTC mining machines that were produced by Bitmain and the owners of the mining rigs were told that they don’t have the necessary permits to own and to operate the machines. Also, they were not authorized to be transporting the machines during the COVID-19 quarantine. Under the current legislation, we can see that Venezuelan citizens interested in conducting cryptocurrency-related mining activities must obtain the appropriate permits from a government office called the National Superintendence of Cryptoactives. The owners who fail to obtain these permits risk being fined and having all of their equipment confiscated.

Venezuela has been a huge cryptocurrency hotspot because of the fact that there’s massive hyperinflation affecting the nation’s fiat currency, the Venezuelan bolivar. The statistics show that the users in the country are among the highest-volume buyers and sellers on LocalBitcoins.