Armenia aims to position itself as a Bitcoin mining hub

On the finish of August, a digital platform referred to as ECOS Free Financial Zone delivered good news from a country that not often sparks on the worldwide crypto map — Armenia. ECOS reported including 60 megawatts (MW) of capability to its energy plant-based facility, working since 2018. 

Located at one of many hydroelectric crops on the Hrazdan river, the mining facility will get its electrical energy provide instantly from the high-voltage grid and makes use of the positioning’s infrastructure to energy containers. The platform’s representatives famous that ECOS may develop to a further 200MW of unpolluted electrical energy. For comparability, the Berlin Geothermal plant in El Salvador gives away 1.5MW of the 102MW it produces to crypto miners, whereas the Greenidge Technology close to the shore of Seneca Lake within the State of New York ought to have produced about 44MW.

Given the controversial developments with crypto mining regulation within the Commonwealth of Impartial States (CIS) area — nations of the previous Soviet Union — maybe it’s excessive time to evaluate the commercial potential of this post-Soviet republic, towering 1,850 meters above sea degree.

Modest publicity

Essentially the most sure truth about Armenia concerning crypto is that we don’t get a lot data from the nation. In 2018, the Armenian Blockchain Affiliation joined its counterparts from Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Russia, China and South Korea in submitting a joint lawsuit against tech goliaths equivalent to Google, Twitter and Fb for banning crypto-related promoting. The lawsuit’s additional future is unclear, although the restrictions on crypto adverts have been uplifted not less than to some extent in recent times. 

The identical 12 months, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and different high officers reportedly attended the opening ceremony of a new mining farm touting itself as one of many world’s largest. By native media estimates, round $50 million had been invested within the creation of the farm with 3,000 Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) mining machines and a deliberate capability of 120,000 sooner or later. The farm is a three way partnership by main Armenian conglomerate Multi Group, based by businessman and politician Gagik Tsarukyan and controversial worldwide mining agency Omnia Tech. No updates concerning the work of the farm have hit the media radar for the reason that very opening press releases.

Maybe a very powerful and publicly seen growth from the nation of three million was the failure of efforts to kind a shared stance regarding cryptocurrency regulations by the Eurasian Financial Union (EAEU). In 2021, a excessive official from EAEU revealed that member states didn’t help a latest initiative for a uniform cryptocurrency regulatory framework inside the union. Whereas no insights on what actual members sabotaged a undertaking can be found, the failure itself may have a long-lasting affect on the entire area, because the EAEU contains not solely Armenia and Belarus but in addition such mining heavyweights as Russia and Kazakhstan.

Massive ambitions

Whereas there are not any traces of the present legislative framework on crypto within the nation (and no prohibition as effectively), Armenia stepped on its regulatory path again in 2017 by forming a committee on blockchain applied sciences. 

In 2018, the native Ministry of Finance launched a working group referred to as JAF Crypto Market Intelligence Unit (JAF CMIU), whose activity was to review potential regulatory situations. That very same 12 months, a particular Free Financial Zone (ECOS) was established by the federal government decree to assist entice and develop blockchain and crypto startups.

The potential residents of the two.2-hectares ECOS are granted the monetary advantages of zero value-added tax (VAT), the absence of import and export duties and no tax burden on property and actual property. Because the official web page goes, the ECOS additionally provides multifunctional workspaces, a analysis and growth middle, acceleration applications and the infrastructure comprised of an influence plant, information middle and mining farm with Bitmain gear. The one tax to which the zone residents are topic is a month-to-month cost of revenue tax for workers.

The mining capacities of the free financial zone are secured by the electrical energy from the Hrazdan Thermal Energy Plant, located in a mountainous area of Armenia with a low common annual temperature, making it advantageous for chopping cooling prices.

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Talking to Cointelegraph, ECOS advertising supervisor Anna Komashko cites the latter truth as a critical benefit, nodding to the latest issues for miners in Texas after a scorching heatwave within the Southern state. As she specifies, at present 60% of the Armenian facility’s 260,000 customers are from the USA and Europe.

A mountain of mining?

Armenia posseses not less than two giant mining amenities, one among them advertising itself as state-of-the-art. The nation’s authorities additionally appears reasonably pleasant towards crypto, albeit with none concrete laws being thought-about. However is that this sufficient to think about the nation notably enticing for investments?

Maybe such broad components because the nation’s ascendance in clear governance rankings, the massive consumption of IT specialists who’ve left Russia, and the pure leaning to draw the high-tech and repair companies within the absence of great arduous trade may additionally work in Armenia’s favor.

However, with crypto mining, the decisive significance nonetheless lies within the realm of the fabric, i.e., the general vitality profile of the nation.

Knowledge from a 2021 examine by the DEKIS Analysis group on the College of Avila ranks Armenia 56th within the world crypto mining potential rating. The place itself isn’t too low — for instance, with all its gargantuan ambitions, El Salvador occupies solely line quantity 73. Kazakhstan, which for a brief interval turned the prime spot for Chinese language miners, sits at 66th, and Iran ranks one hundred and fifteenth.

However extra curiously, by its potential, Armenia outranks neighboring Georgia (83th), which has established itself as a mining hub and by 2018 ranked second across the globe in Bitcoin (BTC) mining profitability.

Nonetheless, one may query the DEKIS report itself as, in line with its information, each mountainous nations possess close to to zero quantity of renewable vitality (0% within the case of Georgia, 0.1% in Armenia, to be exact). Talking to Cointelegraph, Arcane Analysis analyst Jaran Mellerud recited remarkably totally different figures:

“In Georgia, 75% of the electrical energy is generated by hydropower, whereas this quantity is just 31% in Armenia.” 

These numbers, Mellerud believes, make a distinction for potential miners who naturally search cheaper vitality. Whereas hydropower has virtually zero marginal manufacturing value, pure fuel and nuclear energy — which nonetheless kind a complete majority of energy provide in Armenia — are approach much less handy for collateral use. In any case, Mellerud can’t contemplate the nation as an particularly enticing route for overseas mining as a consequence of native costs: 

“The issue is excessive electrical energy costs, particularly now when pure fuel costs are going by means of the roof, and a major share of Armenia’s electrical energy is generated by pure fuel. I used to be in Georgia this summer time, and even there, miners are leaving the nation.”

By 2021, the worth per kilowatt hour (KWh) of vitality in Armenia amounted to $0.077, which was comparatively decrease than in developed markets (take an instance $0.372 in Germany and even $0.15 in the USA), however nonetheless larger than in Kazakhstan ($0.041), Uzbekistan ($0.028) or Iran ($0.005). With the inflation of worldwide vitality costs, the numbers could change considerably, nevertheless it hardly would result in considerably totally different outcomes.

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In response to the nation’s profile from Worldwide Power Company (IEA), Armenia is closely dependent on Russia when it comes to its consumption, importing round 85% of its fuel and all of its nuclear gas from there. All in all, it depends on gas imports from one nation to supply practically 70% of its electrical energy, “elevating issues concerning the variety of provide.”

As a report from OCCRP suggests, even the rising quantity of small hydroelectric crops supplied solely 9% of consumed vitality by 2013, with environmental scientists elevating issues about these crops endangering native rivers’ water steadiness.