There has been a lot of coverage in the mainstream media about cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is a form of digital money. There is no physical coin or bill. It all takes place online. There is a brisk trade in cryptocurrency and many people are investing in it by buying units of one the cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrencies are based on the blockchain process where a ledger of transactions is distributed to all the players in the game. Another way to obtain cryptocurrency is called crypto mining. This is a process where computers are used to carry out mathematical procedures that verify a block of ledger transactions. It is based on “first come first served” where the first miner to correctly process a block receives cryptocurrency as a reward. One of the problems with crypto mining is that it requires a great deal of electricity to power the computers that are competing to verify blocks of the ledger.
Now some financial experts in Ukraine have decided that crypto mining could be a proper asset that could solve significant issues involving spending in the Ukrainian energy sector. The Ukrainian government is pushing for the use of nuclear-powered crypto mining to help with this problem.
Alexei Mushak is an economic advisor to the former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk. He said that Ukraine needs crypto miners to take advantage of nuclear power plants that favor smooth operations. It will also help lower the cost of nuclear power.
Mushak explained that “Modern equipment (ASIC miners) can turn on or off in the space of a minute. Crypto mining can smooth out fluctuations in consumption and generation [at nuclear power plants].” The basic concept behind nuclear-powered crypto mining is to shift the output of nuclear power plants to crypto mining when the demand for electricity falls.
In addition, by boosting crypto mining in Ukraine, NAEC Energoatom, the state-owned company that operates all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, could have the future ability to expand its sales markets. This is important because NAEC suffered a loss of one hundred and seventy-one dollars during 2020.
Nuclear-powered crypto mining in Ukraine has been a project since May of 2020. This project was started by the former acting Minister of Energy Olga Buslavets. It intends to construct data centers near four of NEAC’s nuclear power plants in the first phase. The project is aimed at launching these data centers in 2023.
Government approval has already been given for the construction of these data centers. They could have the ability to mine bitcoins and other major cryptocurrencies although this was not specified in the plan for the project. Ukraine has picked a company to build one of these massive data centers in Rivne for crypto mining.
This data center will be based in the Rivne nuclear power plant. The construction firm has been awarded about three hundred and seventeen million dollars for the project. The company expects to complete construction of the data center by the end of August, 2022.
Overall, Ukraine has a significant portion of the global crypto mining market. According to analysts, Ukraine currently has about thirty percent of the bitcoin market. However, mining activities have been slowing down for the past few years.