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 excellent news from a rustic 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 straight from the high-voltage grid and makes use of the positioning’s infrastructure to energy containers. The platform’s representatives famous that ECOS might develop to a further 200MW of unpolluted electrical energy. For comparability, the Berlin Geothermal plant in El Salvador provides 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 economic potential of this post-Soviet republic, towering 1,850 meters above sea degree.

Modest publicity

Probably the most sure reality about Armenia relating to crypto is that we don’t get a lot info 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 towards tech goliaths similar to Google, Twitter and Fb for banning crypto-related promoting. The lawsuit’s additional future is unclear, although the restrictions on crypto advertisements have been uplifted at the least to some extent in recent times. 

The identical yr, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and different high officers reportedly attended the opening ceremony of a brand 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 in regards to 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 improvement from the nation of three million was the failure of efforts to type a shared stance relating to cryptocurrency laws by the Eurasian Financial Union (EAEU). In 2021, a excessive official from EAEU revealed that member states didn’t help a current initiative for a uniform cryptocurrency regulatory framework throughout the union. Whereas no insights on what precise members sabotaged a venture can be found, the failure itself can have a long-lasting impression on the entire area, because the EAEU consists of not solely Armenia and Belarus but in addition such mining heavyweights as Russia and Kazakhstan.

Giant ambitions

Whereas there are not any traces of the prevailing 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 process was to check doable regulatory situations. That very same yr, a particular Free Financial Zone (ECOS) was established by the federal government decree to assist appeal to 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 presents multifunctional workspaces, a analysis and improvement middle, acceleration packages and the infrastructure comprised of an influence plant, knowledge middle and mining farm with Bitmain gear. The one tax to which the zone residents are topic is a month-to-month cost of earnings 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 reducing cooling prices.

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Chatting with Cointelegraph, ECOS advertising and marketing supervisor Anna Komashko cites the latter reality as a severe benefit, nodding to the current issues for miners in Texas after a scorching heatwave within the Southern state. As she specifies, at the moment 60% of the Armenian facility’s 260,000 customers are from the USA and Europe.

A mountain of mining?

Armenia posseses at the least two giant mining services, certainly one of them advertising and marketing itself as state-of-the-art. The nation’s authorities additionally appears reasonably pleasant towards crypto, albeit with none concrete laws being thought of. However is that this sufficient to contemplate the nation significantly engaging for investments?

Maybe such broad components because the nation’s ascendance in clear governance scores, 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 business might 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 power profile of the nation.

Knowledge from a 2021 research by the DEKIS Analysis group on the College of Avila ranks Armenia 56th within the international 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 grew to become the prime spot for Chinese language miners, sits at 66th, and Iran ranks one hundred and fifteenth.

However extra apparently, 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 response to its knowledge, each mountainous nations possess close to to zero quantity of renewable power (0% within the case of Georgia, 0.1% in Armenia, to be exact). Chatting with Cointelegraph, Arcane Analysis analyst Jaran Mellerud recited remarkably completely 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 power. Whereas hydropower has nearly zero marginal manufacturing value, pure fuel and nuclear energy — which nonetheless type a complete majority of energy provide in Armenia — are approach much less handy for collateral use. In spite of everything, Mellerud can’t take into account the nation as an particularly engaging route for overseas mining resulting from native costs: 

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

By 2021, the worth per kilowatt hour (KWh) of power 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 increased than in Kazakhstan ($0.041), Uzbekistan ($0.028) or Iran ($0.005). With the inflation of worldwide power costs, the numbers might change considerably, but it surely hardly would result in considerably completely different outcomes.

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Based on the nation’s profile from Worldwide Power Company (IEA), Armenia is closely depending on Russia by way of 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 almost 70% of its electrical energy, “elevating considerations in regards to the range of provide.”

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