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Highlights
- Civil unrest in Kazakhstan has resulted in protesters taking to the street in several cities including Almaty and the nation’s capital, Nur-Sultan
- Bitcoin hash rates are down considerably resulting in the price of Bitcoin to drop below US$43,000
- The start of 2022 has seen various altcoins outperform Bitcoin with the mid cap altcoins performing the best so far
Civil unrest in Kazakhstan has resulted in a shrunken crypto economy with crypto mining shut down in an attempt to remedy massive power outages across the country.
The civil unrest, which is the result of rising fuel costs, has resulted in protesters taking to the street in several cities including Almaty and the nation’s capital, Nur-Sultan.
The uprising has resulted in over a thousand citizens being injured and police and government officials being attacked.
Kazakhstan has been largely offline for the past couple of days with phonelines and internet being disconnected.
Due to mass power shortages across Kazakhstan, Bitcoin hash rates are down considerably resulting in the price of Bitcoin to drop below US$43,000 - its lowest point since September, 2021.
On Wednesday, Bitcoin.com News reported that the total crypto economy had shrunk by 4.5 percent to a total market cap of US$2.25 trillion.
The significantly reduced hash rate is also due to the fact that a number of Bitcoin miners relocated to Kazakhstan following tightening crypto regulation by Chinese authorities last year. This saw an exodus of Bitcoin miners move out of China to Kazakhstan, which subsequently became a mining hotspot.
Neighbouring Russia have sent in troops at the request of Kazakhstan President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to try and bring peace to the nation.
The majority of the top ranked cryptos by market cap are in the red for the past 24 hours with the exceptions being stablecoin Tether and seventh ranked crypto and self-professed “Ethereum killer”, Cardano.
Altcoin News
The start of 2022 has seen various altcoins outperform Bitcoin with the mid cap altcoins performing the best so far, bringing in profits of eight percent since the start of January. The positive performance of mid-cap altcoins is mainly due to the solid performance of 25th ranked crypto, Cosmos, which has gained nearly 30 percent since the start of January.
Meanwhile, small-cap altcoins have also performed reasonably well, bringing in four percent gains and large-cap altcoins also performing positively, amassing three percent gains.
Winners and Losers
Note: Growth from the 24 hours prior to 12:30pm AEST
Source: Coinmarketcap.com, based on top 100 cryptos.
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