Venezuela’s government has announced it will ban bitcoin mining and seized 11,000 application-specific integrated circuits used to mine the cryptocurrency.
The statement also said the government had disconnected a number of Bitcoin mines as it sought to “disconnect all cryptocurrency mining farms in the country from the electrical system, avoiding the high impact on demand,” Bitcoin.com reported.
Cointelegraph reports that the announcement also followed the confiscation of 2,000 Bitcoin mining devices in the city of Maracay.
Back in 2018, Venezuela introduced its own official cryptocurrency, the petro, which was to be gold-backed and used in international dealings. Since then, however, the petro has faded from news headlines and likely use, replaced by a digital currency dubbed the USDT. Also known as Tether, the cryptocurrency is pegged to the U.S. dollar.
