Bitcoin farms in Abkhazia shutting down

For Inal from the Caucasus, the Bitcoin hype with drastically increased exchange rates is no reason to be happy. "I could cry," says the 30-year-old, who prefers not to reveal his full name. The young man from Abkhazia had hoped for a quick buck. Together with friends he bought powerful computers from his savings for 20,000 dollars, which should help him "mine" the crypto currency. At first everything went well, the business said he was pouring $ 5,000 a month into his cash register. But he wasn't the only one who wanted to participate in the boom - many more followed suit. The problem: The computers need enormous amounts of electricity to produce Bitcoin. That was then missing elsewhere in the country. Now the government has pulled the plug and hunted down the miners. "That is unjust, very unjust," says Inal. After all, the government initially allowed prospecting, thereby ensuring that many other crypto gold diggers jumped on the bandwagon. In fact, according to the authorities in Abkhazia, at least 625 such "crypto" farms have emerged in the past two years alone. Local people say there are many more, because recently many families have simply bought computers to get part of the cake. The temptation is great: if you got around 3100 dollars for a Bitcoin at the end of 2018, it was around 58,000 a few days ago.