On September 2, 2020, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed a decree to appoint Bagdat Mussin as the country's new Minister of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry.
As one of his attempts to reinforce Kazakhstan's economy, Mussin plans to expand the country's cryptocurrency mining sector by investing ₸300 billion (or approximately $715 million).
Mussin sees Kazakhstan as having an advantage in the cryptocurrency industry, considering that it already has access to cheap electricity, with prices as low as $0.04 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Mussin hopes that the investment can further boost Kazakhstan's already successful mining operations to earn even higher revenue.
"More than 80 billion tenge (approximately $190 million) has been invested in the sector," Mussin said. "Today we have preliminary agreements on attracting investments worth 300 billion tenge."
He also said that the central Asian country already boasts 13 mining farms, noting that an additional 4 mining farms are under construction.
The country that is known for Baikonur Cosmodrome, which is the first and the largest space launch complex in the world, had established cryptocurrency tax regulations back in 2019 in an attempt to support cryptocurrency-related activities.
Its laws outlined that the Kazakhstan cryptocurrency mining firms were liable to taxes similar to data centers if they used their hardware to deliver cryptocurrency mining services to others.
Previously in June, the country has passed legal amendments to clarify the regulation and taxation of cryptocurrency mining that it hopes will boost its oil-dominated economy.
However, the local laws only permit the mining of asset-backed cryptocurrencies while prohibiting that of unsecured cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
At this time, Kazakhstan boasts one of the largest cryptocurrency mining facilities in the world, which is based in Ekibastuz, near the Russian border. Consuming as much electricity as needed to power 180,000 homes, the facility is capable of hosting up to 50,000 mining rigs, according to sales director Dmitriy Ivanov.
Ekibastuz that is also known as the biggest open-cast coal field, has two coal-fired power plants nearby that have a combined capacity of 5,000 MW.
Kazakhstan claims to account for 6% of the global cryptocurrency mining, as of April 2020 - making it the fourth-largest cryptocurrency mining hub after China, the U.S., and Russia.